


Sanctuary

by p0rk



Category: Beetlejuice (1988), Beetlejuice (Cartoon 1989), Beetlejuice - All Media Types
Genre: Altars, Alternate Universe, Asexual Character, Asexual Relationship, Exorcisms, F/M, Ghosts, Mental Health Issues, Possession, Rituals, Self-Harm, Therapy, Worldbuilding, hanahaki
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-06
Updated: 2020-10-06
Packaged: 2021-03-08 08:40:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 5
Words: 21,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26849089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/p0rk/pseuds/p0rk
Summary: Lydia makes a shrine for Beetlejuice.(Rating is not for sexual content; please note tags and see chapter summaries for additional disclaimers.)
Relationships: Beetlejuice/Lydia Deetz
Comments: 4
Kudos: 33





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BEENZ](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BEENZ/gifts).



> Read before proceeding:  
> *This fic has scenes depicting graphic self-harm*  
> *This fic contains a non-sexual but **underage** pairing*  
> *Chapter summaries in the end notes contain spoilers but detail questionable stuff from the tags*
> 
> Otherwise, enjoy this lighthearted Halloween story and have a good spooky season 🎃

Despite the lovely way the blood was beginning to crust on the corners of her cuts, Lydia couldn’t get her stepmom’s dumb voice out of her head. Their last altercation had been particularly ugly and the last thing Delia said continued to play over and over in Lydia’s mind—an accusation that she was “doing this to herself just to upset her—,” if only Delia could understand! Barbara Maitland too— it was the ghost’s fault that Delia even knew about the cuts anyway.

It wasn’t a huge surprise to Lydia that the ghosts in the attic were spying on her now that they’d formed some type of parental attachment to her. Barbara cried more than anyone else when she first determined that Lydia was cutting herself. When a ghost cries, ectoplasm-like liquid spills along the floor beneath them, visible only to those who would see the dead. Barbara’s mommy-flavored ectoplasm was especially unpleasant to look at, all pinkish-red like some sort of twisted embryonic fluid. Lydia found it somehow more horrifying than the rest of the house’s ghostly antics.

Between Delia’s self-inflated freak out over it, and Barbara’s gooey pink ghost tears spilling under the bathroom door, Lydia lost her momentum on that evening’s activity. The increasingly elaborate designs carved into her arms would have to be finished later.

Lydia cleaned up the wads of blood-stained tissues she’d created and exited the bathroom, only to immediately be intercepted by Delia again. She clutched a familiar little notebook, furious, stomping around in pink ectoplasm that only Lydia could see.

“The Maitlands said you have another knife somewhere!” Delia frantically flashed the pages of handwritten ghost scrawl. The shared communication book for the dead and alive parents to nitpick over her struck a chord in Lydia’s heart.

“Don’t you ever think it’s weird that you’re letting ghosts tell you how to be a parent?” Lydia countered, trying to distract her. “It’s almost like they’re trying to possess you guys all over again.”

“This has gone on long enough.” Delia powered through it firmly. “On Friday I’m taking you to see Dr. Grace.”

The thought of being dragged to Delia’s narcotics-distributing therapist pushed Lydia over the edge, but she wouldn’t let Delia know that. Instead she tore off to her room, throwing the door closed and locking it up tight.

Laying on her bed, she couldn’t make her mind stop spinning. Drying cuts stuck to her bedding, making her flinch delightfully each time she tossed and turned. That damn notebook would be the end of her—as it turned out, having two sets of parents wasn’t as much fun as it seemed, especially when the dead ones constantly snitched on her to the living ones.

Without thinking, Lydia flopped over in her bed and pressed her face into her pillow, screaming the name—,

“Beetlejuice! Beetlejuice! Beetlejuice!”

Even though her face was covered, the stench of him filled her sinuses like smoke. She held her breath for a moment before lifting her head to peek.

He stood at the end of her bed, hideous as always, gazing down at her with cloudy yellow eyes.

“I knew you’d change your mind.” He broke the lengthening silence first, so sudden it made her flinch. “Lemme see if I still got that ring around here somewhere…”

At this point it felt like humoring a weird charade. Lydia willed herself not to react as he tossed aside handfuls of cockroaches and snakes pulled from various pockets.

“Guess I misplaced it…” he shrugged, grinned. “Course, that means you’ll have to be the one to come up with a ring this time. Don’t know my size? Here, take this for a reference. Hehehe…” he chuckled at himself while he tried to pass her his now-severed ring finger.

“That’s not why I called you.” Lydia swallowed her revulsion, shoving aside the offering hand.

He genuinely seemed confused then. In his brief silence, she continued.

“I have a problem. It has to do with… this.” Perhaps hoping to frighten _him_ for once, she thrust forth her arms, turning them over slowly for dramatic effect.

“Cute.” He said unimpressed, almost like a disinterested parent. “What’d you do that with, a pocket knife? You know you have to go a little deeper than that if you wanna come hang out on my side of town.”

“I’m not trying to kill myself. I haven’t even finished the latest draft of my suicide note.” She sighed, momentarily overwhelmed thinking of all the happy hallmarks of childhood that were keeping her from being the creature of darkness she truly was inside. “And for your information, I had to take the blade out of a pencil sharpener to do this. Delia keeps all the knives in the house locked up now. Even the kitchen ones.”

“I think I see what’s getting you down.” Beetlejuice nodded to himself. “Sick of those little parents always telling you where you can go, what you can do, which dead guy you can marry…” he stretched and cracked his knuckles, all of his joints snapping and grinding bone-on-bone so loudly it made Lydia’s ears hurt. “You know, I’ve been thinkin’ about getting those weirdos out of the picture for a long time.”

“I don’t want you to kill my parents, either.” Lydia cut off his fantasizing sharply.

“How’s about telling me what you called me up here for, huh? To show off your kitty-cat scratches? _Don’t waste my time_!” he screamed suddenly, so genuinely bothered that Lydia wondered for a moment whether she’d made a terrible mistake. Indeed, he continued, ranting. “Dumb kid! Do you have any idea how many dead chicks I’ve seen that put gashes in themselves the size of your _face_?”

Maybe just to antagonize her further, he mirrored her face, transforming into a nearly perfect likeness of her but for the crossed eyes and buck teeth.

That struck a chord somehow. She glanced away, more disturbed by that trick than any of his snakes or severed fingers.

“I suppose that’s why you want to marry me so badly.” She chose her words carefully.

“Hm.” He squinted at her, thankfully through his own eyes this time, but seemed a little more subdued for the moment. He seemed somehow obligated to stick around to see why she’d called him. “What do you _actually_ want?”

She pondered this, hunching forward on the bed, hugging her knees. So many ideas rushed over her at once, drowning her thoughts. She’d been nitpicked ceaselessly by two entire sets of parents, over-mothered by two women obsessed with opposite but equally annoying Mommy complexes, and the only person who seemed compelled to ask a question was a malevolent spirit she shouldn’t have summoned in the first place.

“Seriously. What do you really… _really_ want?” Beetlejuice prompted, also seemingly wrapped up in some heavy thinking.

What if the other ghosts could tell that Beetlejuice had been here tonight? The thought struck her of receiving yet another talking-to thanks to another ghost note from her overbearing ghost mom.

“Lyds?”

“I want you to steal a notebook.” Her voice was soft. She felt like the dumb child he saw in her after all, especially when his scowl turned baffled and he tilted his head until skin started to rip along his bent neck.

“A _notebook_? Come on, you can’t even steal a notebook on your own? Jeez!”

“My parents keep it in a safe! I’m not kidding!” she defended when he started to laugh at her. “They live to torment me, I swear! Well, mostly Delia and Barbara, but Adam gets in on it, too, and then my dad just goes along with it to keep everyone else happy.”

“Look, Babes—,” He leaned forward to rest an elbow on her bed frame. At once, a shiver wracked down Lydia’s spine. A sensation of a million frigid hands grappling at her struck her for a single moment. She gasped and then composed herself.

“Don’t touch my bed!” she barked without another thought.

He lunged away, making a show of being offended but doing as she’d said.

“Hm! If that’s how it’s gonna be…” He rolled his eyes, actually sulking. “It’s kinda sweet that you thought of me, but unless you got something more interesting, I gotta split.”

“No way! _You’re_ bailing on _me_?”

“Nothing personal, Babes. I’d love to hang out all day, heck I’d even marry your immortal soul for eternity— or something like that— but it takes a _lot_ to come back and forth all the time, you know?” Now he spoke without any weird tricks, sincere and true. “You either gotta have a place to crash up here, or you gotta have business. Not everyone gets a free day pass, and those of us with _travel restrictions_ have to get up here on our own most of the time. That shit really wears a guy out.”

“Isn’t there some way we could fix it so you could stay longer?” she tried.

“Well, there’s always that thing about getting hitched…”

“You don’t have to marry _me_ , do you? Couldn’t you just find someone who wants to marry you and then just come visit?”

“You’d want me to visit you? Why?” he pondered before remembering himself and sneering at her instead. “Anyway, there’s a pretty obvious flaw in your little idea there, Babes. I couldn’t even get another corpse to marry me, let alone a qualifying alive chick.”

“I’m sure there’s _someone_ out there—,”

“ _I’m sure there’s someone out there_ \--, ugh, don’t even fuckin’ start!” he cut her off sharply, mocking her. “Look, would you believe that shit if you were me? Yeah, I know an alive chick or two who’s into this—,” he paused to gesture at himself, his hands falling off for effect, wrist bones sticking out comically, “—but none of those chicks ever have the right qualifications. Or, you know, the one qualification. You get it?”

“I don’t.” Perhaps she really did, but it was fascinating to hear him discuss the subject. She hoped that some part of this made him squirm, too, at least a little.

“I gotta find a girl who’s—well, the thing is, those types of girls always run away screaming when the topic comes up. Not a lot of life experience, those ones…”

“Are you suggesting you have to marry a _young_ girl? Specifically, a virgin?” she at last acknowledged it.

“Well, now that you mention it, I might’ve heard about some rule like that, yeah…” he shrugged then got defensive. “Look, I didn’t make this shit up, and I wasn’t gonna tell ya…”

“And the whole point is, if I married you I wouldn’t be a virgin afterwards?” she pushed further, addressing the question she’d tried not to consider since the first time they’d nearly wed.

“No, no, no…! Babes, you’ve got it all wrong!” He pleaded his innocence. “I’m not that kind of guy. I mean, I’m _really_ not. Even if us dead folks could get up to that sort of thing, well… my piece fell off a long time ago and I lost it, okay?”

“Oh, gosh! I’m sorry I even asked!” she buried her face in her hands while he cackled at what she still wasn’t sure was actually a joke.

“Unless that’s why you’re holding out on me, because I could probably arrange something. I mean, I know a few _stiffs_ that could stand in, hehehe…”

“Gross! I get it!” she couldn’t completely hide her laughter and gave in, joining him. After some thought, maybe to try to lighten things up, she decided to admit something, too. “You know, I’ve never been interested in that. I’ve never cared for people in that way, and I don’t think I’ll ever care for it in my entire life. So, you know, when I die, if you’re still around, I’ll still be a virgin.”

“So? It doesn’t work unless you’re alive.” He snorted. “Anyway, why do you care so much? If you’re not going to take it seriously, just forget about it.”

“Sorry. I was just trying to be nice.”

He stared at her, shoulders slumped pathetically. Then, a large millipede prodded its way through one of his tear ducts, writhing to find purchase on his cheek. He seized it and ripped it out, leaving a sagging tear in the skin beneath his eye. He clutched the bug, gazing at it ponderingly in his hand.

He moved – Lydia closed her eyes in time but she could still hear the crunch of it between his teeth.

“Is that… good?” she got over herself a moment later, peeking one eye open to see him licking his fingers with a fetid green tongue and then wiping them on his jacket. It struck her that being an actual rotting corpse was not the nastiest thing about him.

“Let me put it this way. Whenever you start thinking about how much you want to be dead, consider that we don’t have things like potato chips on this side.”

“Oh.”

“Now, be a good little kid or whatever and let me get on with my day.” He prompted, gesturing for her to respond.

“Uh… Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice?” she spoke slowly, evaluating his reaction. To her surprise, he stamped, impatient.

“Well? Hurry up!”

It was odd to see him so eager to return to the place he’d once worked so hard to get out of. To see him almost down—or maybe that was her, projecting. Still, she thought something was worth mentioning.

“If it means anything, I know for a fact that there’s someone who would marry you, especially if there isn’t any _gross_ stuff involved. Just not for a really long time.”

He winced. “Don’t tease me.”

“I’m sorry, Beetlejuice. Oh!” At once he was gone, stench and all. His sudden absence was as shocking as his presence.

Not that she had much time to think about it. Soon there was a knock on her door, a simpering voice following it that both annoyed and saddened her.

“Lydia? It’s Daddy. Will you come downstairs and talk with your stepmother and I?”

Charles Deetz summoning his daughter for a Talk was big news. Lydia pulled herself together and humored them, trudging down the stairs sullenly, but lost in the thought that she’d just spoken to Beetlejuice in her bedroom not a minute earlier. She found them set up in the dining room, the shared notebook laid out on the table.

Her father cleared his throat.

“Well, Lydia… I understand that you have an appointment in the city on Friday.”

“I do?”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake, Lydia, just show us your arms!” Delia soon caved and spoke over her husband. “See, Charles? Fresh cuts. Lydia, Mrs. Maitland said she saw you going into the bathroom with a new blade. Now, tell us where you got it.”

“Why are the ghosts watching me going to the bathroom?”

“Where did you get the blade and where is it now?” Delia repeated, ignoring the shitty comebacks.

“I don’t know what those ghosts are talking about. Did you actually see them writing in the notebook, or…?” Lydia continued to argue.

“Oh, Lydia…” Charles spoke again, his voice cracking. “I’m so sorry that it’s come to this.”

Somehow it hurt more to see her hapless father react than anyone else. If it didn’t bother her, why did it bother everyone else so much? She never actually expected any of them to be so upset.

“Are you really that unhappy here?” her father pleaded.

“I don’t do it because I’m sad,” she tried to explain.

“Then, why?” He could never understand. “Is there something you need from us that you’re not getting?”

Lydia realized she’d started to drift off, separating herself from her father’s grief. Of course she also had Beetlejuice on her mind. Curiosity wracked her—she had a million questions for him now. Was needing to marry a virgin some sort of punishment like being trapped in the house was for the Maitlands? She’d meant what she’d told him, although she wondered why their conversation had become so intimate. Still, she was thinking about everything he’d said. All of it.

“I guess there _is_ something I’d like to have…” Lydia at last acknowledged her father, watching him experience an entirely different range of emotions in that moment. She knew she was manipulating him for some weird reasons—oh well. “I could really go for some potato chips.”

“You want _potato chips_? _Chips_ are going to help you?” Delia responded first, stammering in disbelief.

“Sure. Why not?” Lydia shrugged at her shocked outrage.

“Well, let’s get the girl some potato chips!” Charles said eagerly, perhaps looking for some temporary solution to focus on.

“Well, she can’t just have _chips_ of all things… and at this hour!” Delia protested.

“You saw what the Maitlands said, and we both agreed that she doesn’t get enough to eat. So if she wants chips, give her some chips. _If it makes her happy_ …”

“They’re worrying about how much I eat now?” Lydia scoffed, but otherwise kept her mouth shut when she got her way and was bought off for now with some snacks. At least it put an end to the conversation, and she had a feeling they were all grateful for that.

At last she was allowed to return to her room. She fetched a tall glass of water and stole away with her bag of chips, locking her door and lighting a small candle that wouldn’t give her away with too much light.

Once, she’d forgotten a glass of water overnight in the attic. The next morning when she’d returned to collect it, she found it empty, completely evaporated.

“That water was amazing, Lydia! Thank you!” Adam Maitland had greeted her first, appearing beside her to acknowledge the disappearance.

“Remember what the book said, Adam! We’re not supposed to thank them!” Barbara appeared to scold him.

“Oh, right…” The hapless ghost couple looked to her, then Barbara gave in too. “What we mean is, if you ever forget some more water up here… just as long as it doesn’t have a lid. Lids don’t work at night? Gosh, this is all so confusing…”

Lydia had figured it was respectful not to ask them too many questions, but at least she’d determined from the experience that there was some sort of refreshment that could be offered to the dead. With that knowledge in mind, she arranged the glass of water and the bag of chips on her dresser. Somehow it didn’t seem right, didn’t seem like it was _enough_. So she tore through her art supplies, digging out some black and white paper, sitting on the floor to cut them into strips and then glue it all together like a hurried little placemat.

Rearranging the setup, she remarked that it already looked more appropriate. More intentional. There was no mistaking who it was meant for. For a finishing touch she opened the bag of chips and put some on a cute little ceramic plate she’d made in school.

When she was done arranging her handiwork, she grinned to herself and called out the name, whispering into the room,

“Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice!”

Unexpectedly, several moments passed and he did not appear.

Just when she tried to call him again, an icy sensation tightened like invisible fingers around her throat. She grasped at her neck—there was nothing there to pry away. Then the frigid hand released her, sweeping across her shoulders and trailing down her back. She couldn’t help but shiver violently even as it disappeared, more of a silent acknowledgment of a malevolent presence than a kind greeting.

“Um… Sorry to call you again on the same day, but, this is for you.” She pointed to the arrangement on the dresser.

A voice spoke to her sharply, loudly, seeming to originate inside of her head so that it was not softened by covering her ears.

“Yeah, I get the idea, Babes.” He grumbled, almost meekly. “Now will ya just go to bed so I can do my thing?”

“Yes, of course!” she snuffed her candle and scurried into her bed.

_“And don’t fuckin’ look at me!”_

“Okay! Right!” she buried her head under the blankets, holding still and waiting.

Several minutes passed. She heard a sound like a long, rattling breath being drawn. At once the room was cold, so cold that she shivered even in the stifling covers. Footsteps crossed the room. She could hear him pacing before he stopped and murmured in such a way that she really hoped suggested he was pleased with what she’d left him.

“Hm. Not bad…” she could hear him acknowledge.

Then, the sound of gurgling, pouring water filled the room. She heard a sound like splashing on the floor—gallons of it, obviously exceeding the contents of the mere glass, and continued. Above all of it she could hear him gulping and gasping on the other side of the room, like he himself was chugging gallons of water, or trying to. This carried on for a long time—uncomfortably long. Lydia shuffled and covered her head with her pillow, but she could still hear it, clear as day, the horrid eternal rush of water and the struggle of a dead guy trying to drink it.

“Aw yeah, that’s the stuff…” between soggy, rattling breaths he muttered pleasantly to himself before carrying on with the hideous drinking noises.

When it had gone on for so long she couldn’t stand it, Lydia moved again, attempting to lift her blanket ever so slightly to peek.

“Hey! I said don’t look at me!” he snapped before she could even catch a glimpse.

“Sorry!” her voice was too small. She didn’t like showing him that side of herself. So she held herself together, faking calm until she really felt that way. Now she wished she’d grabbed the rest of the chips on her way to bed. Maybe her camera, too—she’d piss him off to steal a single picture of whatever was going on outside of her blanket fortress.

At some point she started to nod off but was woken again by a loud, soggy belch that practically shook the rafters.

“Good stuff, Babes.” Sated, slow footsteps crossed the room. Then, they stopped, although she could not say with any certainty that she could tell where.

“I thought you weren’t supposed to thank me.” She willed her voice not to tremble.

“Rules, rules.” He grunted. Then, he was silent. It carried on and Lydia wondered what she was supposed to do.

“Now what? Do I just dismiss you?” She asked.

“You don’t. Now I gotta hang out until you fall asleep.” He said, then added, “Hey, didn’t you know that before you called me up here for this shit?”

“Was I supposed to? The Maitlands don’t have to watch me fall asleep when I leave them a glass of water.” Lydia protested.

“You didn’t make a little _shrine_ for those deadbeats then, did you? Man, you’re dense.” He scoffed, then cooed cloyingly. “I’m flattered, Babes, really. Never woulda guessed I’d be the first dead guy you put food and shit out for. I didn’t know you felt that way.”

“How am I supposed to send you away, then, if I’m asleep?” she powered through his teasing.

“That’s when I split. I’m obligated to take off at that point, and I got better shit to do anyway. So hurry up and go to sleep. Come on!”

“How can I trust that you’ll leave?” she assertively sat up then, throwing off her blankets and leering around the room. The longer she looked for him, the more her heart pounded.

“You shoulda thought about that before you decided to get into the _weird_ shit!” the empty room screamed at her. “Jeez! Stop trying to look at me!”

Grudgingly, she closed her eyes and laid back down.

“I just wanted to know where you are. I can’t sleep if I don’t.” She explained but kept her eyes shut.

He grumbled and muttered indecipherably to himself, but she could hear him walking around again. His footsteps were more distinct now, and he walked aimlessly for a moment, perhaps giving her a chance to locate him. He ended up at her bedside, where he huffed and heaved himself to the floor.

“There, are you _happy_?” his cloying voice came from a point distinctly above the bed, although Lydia was sure she could also hear him shuffling around on the floor right beside her.

“Uh, yeah, that’s much better…” she gave up and decided to just try to rest. After all this she’d probably only get a few hours’ sleep. She just hoped she could get any at all with Beetlejuice anxiously waiting for her –somewhere- in her room.

To his credit, he became quite still after that. Lydia strained to hear anything in the quiet room. It was so silent that she wondered if he was still there at all. Needing to be sure, she tried again.

“Well, goodnight.” She tried to sound pleasant and not worried.

“Huh? Oh, yeah. Goodnight.” He cleared his throat, oddly matching her tone before disappearing again into the silence.

She slept.

She was rousted by Delia for school, late once again. She barely had enough time to inspect the things she’d left out for Beetlejuice. Just like the ghosts in the attic, his water glass had been emptied, evaporated. She was surprised then to see that the dish of chips had been rudely flipped over, the chips scattered and tossed aside but otherwise untouched. For a moment she let herself be offended, but as she gathered up the chips she realized how crispy they were. Water seemed to appeal to the ghosts, but the dry food was worthless to them.

With that in mind, she packed the rest of the chips in her school bag to eat later, intending to appreciate them, but she also packed her illicit pencil sharpener in case her parents should decide to toss her room later.

Delia came around again to usher Lydia to school and found her drinking a tall glass of water, suddenly aware of how refreshing it really was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ch 1 summary (contains spoilers):
> 
> Lore-heavy. The story opens with Lydia finishing up a round of self-harm, distracted that the ghosts in the house have been reporting about her to her parents via a notebook. Frustrated, Lydia summons Beetlejuice, only to learn that he won’t steal the notebook and he doesn’t want to hang out. Lydia pesters him and gets him to admit that he wanted to marry her because he’s obliged to marry a virgin. Awkward discussion about the nature of their asexual relationship. Beetlejuice leaves and Lydia gets nagged some more by her parents, tasked with being taken to a therapist. Lydia constructs a “shrine” for Beetlejuice in her room and gives him some offerings.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See end notes for detailed summary with spoilers/details

Lydia kept herself awake doodling in her paper margins. By the end of the day, cartoon beetles crawled all over her schoolwork.

The crisp autumn air was invigorating and gave her a little more energy, so she took the long route home to admire the trees. She rode her bike past a little farmhouse and laughed with joy to see pumpkins ripening in the field. Halloween was coming soon—she had to make plans. A party seemed in order now that she had a couple of friends. Besides Bertha and Prudence, she wished she could find some way for Beetlejuice to be there too. That seemed like a challenge unto itself. So much for working on her suicide note that night.

On that thought, she dismounted her bike, trying to stay out of sight while she inspected an old, overgrown apple tree at the edge of the farmer’s property. The forgotten tree was mostly unpicked that season, the fruit left to rot on the branches. Somehow the bug-bitten, mushy apples decaying in the grass beneath her feet made her think even more of Beetlejuice, so she searched the last of the hanging fruit to find an absolutely perfect apple for him.

The hard little fruit was dense in her pocket, and she rode the rest of the way home focusing on the feeling of it there, hoping that it was extra crisp and juicy.

She felt high thinking about it, and she was personable enough to humor her parents and eat dinner with them, picking around her plate just enough to make Delia roll her eyes, eating a few bites to keep her father from worrying enough to say something.

Once she’d finished her homework, she took her little blade out of its hiding spot and contemplated trying to make a run for the bathroom, then decided she wasn’t bored enough to risk getting caught again so soon. She’d put a few gouges in herself the night before that still stung pretty nicely, anyway, and she had other things to keep herself busy now instead.

Now that she wasn’t rushing, she took a second go at her space for Beetlejuice. He’d called it a _shrine_ —if that was how he saw it, then something so dramatic deserved more than a haphazard paper mat. She lit a candle to make up for the waning daylight and set to work.

She didn’t realize how much time had passed until she heard a knock on her bedroom door.

“Lydia? May I come in?” Delia seemed shrill, but mellow enough for Lydia to oblige her. Surprisingly, her stepmother entered with a couple of cookies on a plate. Considering that Delia didn’t eat gluten, Lydia had to wonder where they’d come from. Still, it was a nice gesture. It also helped that Delia was distracted by the stuff Lydia was working on.

“Are you making _art_?” Delia asked after looking at the insect-patterned board Lydia’d been painting.

“It’s for school.” Lydia insisted when Delia’s smile became too proud.

“I’m just so pleased to see you doing this instead of, well, _other_ things.” She rattled on. “Express those feelings, Lydia! And tell me if there’s ever any supplies I can get you!”

It was an offer to ponder, and acting receptive got Delia out of her room faster. Lydia nibbled her cookies once she was alone, looking over her work, satisfied. She finished getting ready for bed and then set up the little shrine on the dresser again, refilling the water glass and placing the stolen apple on the plate. Then, she snuffed her candle and called him,

“Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice!”

This time the icy, invisible touch swept over her shoulders and down her arms. Fingertips traced over her palm, making her blush, then they were gone.

“Hi!” she couldn’t help herself. “Thanks for coming back.”

“Yeah, yeah.” His voice grumbled in her head. “Alright, you know the drill.”

Somehow rushing to hide under her covers felt like visiting with an old friend. She laid in her bed and waited, grinning under the blanket when she heard him walking around in the room.

The apple was a quick hit. He grunted approvingly and dug in as it were—she could hear him chewing, smacking his lips, swallowing loudly, although she never heard so much as a single crunch of a bite. Ghost-eating seemed even more tedious than drinking. It sounded like he was gulping frantically, pausing only to ‘sip’ at the water, producing the awful gurgling, pouring sound again.

This time she fell asleep to the gross noises before it was over. She awoke in a start, terrified that he’d already finished and left. She jerked up in her bed.

“Beetlejuice?” she called out into the night. In the moonlight, her well-adjusted eyes clearly saw an empty room.

“Hey! No peeking!”

“Right!” she dove back into the bed, sighing in relief. “I wasn’t sure if you were still here.”

“Yeah, well, I’m just wrapping up.” He answered between the sound of him licking his fingers clean. “That sweet shit takes me a minute to get through, Babes.”

“Sorry…” she wondered if she’d offended him, remembering the overturned plate the night before.

“It’s not a bad thing.” He said lightly. She heard him take a few aimless steps, maybe distracted by thought. “Lyds?” a weird lift in his voice made her concerned.

“Yes?”

“What’s the big idea, here? Giving me all this stuff?”

“Does it bother you?” she really wondered if that was the problem. Maybe she’d violated some sort of ghost etiquette and put him in a compromising situation.

“Not at all! I just gotta wonder what you’re going for.”

“I just wanted to be nice.” She answered plainly.

“Why?”

She thought back over their recent conversation, even the awkward moments, definitely seeing why he’d be confused. She had to ask herself the same question, but her answer came easily despite everything.

“Well, I like you.”

“Really?” he stammered, cleared his throat. “Weird. Sure, okay.”

Feeling a little foolish now, Lydia laid there with her eyes closed, trying to fall asleep so he could just move on. She felt like she’d insulted him maybe, so she tried to just let him be. For that reason she startled when he spoke again.

“Do you really like me?” he asked, sincerely.

“I do,” she answered, equally sincere.

“You wanna know something?” he continued, unprompted. “I think I was kinda like you once. You know, before this whole being dead thing.”

“Oh?” It was then that she realized she’d never considered his existence beyond the time she’d known him. It never occurred to her that he too had once been a living person who now existed to fulfill some sort of sentence related his death, perhaps like the Maitlands in the attic.

Or, perhaps not.

“Course, none of the dead guys that ever wanted to talk to me back in the day were as tender and cuddly and _nice_ as I am.” He almost sounded like he was sulking. “They sure were good at helpin’ me fuck with people, though.”

“You could see the dead when you were alive?” Lydia prompted him to continue.

“Pretty sure, yeah. See ‘em, hear ‘em, smell ‘em… taste ‘em. Yep, those dead guys got me started on the bio-exorcist gig. I mean, it’s a lot easier to remove the living when you’re one of them. I think the people in the place where I was alive caught on to me talking to dead people and figured it to be some sorta demonic possession shit.”

“Demonic possession?” Lydia repeated to sound like she was actively listening, although she was also daydreaming now of what he must’ve looked like, young and alive.

“Yeah, I think they got a different word for it nowadays. Schizo-somethin’.”

“Schizophrenia?”

“Gesundheit!” he cracked himself up with the tired joke. Then he stopped, composed himself, became surly again. “What really pisses me off is that none of those guys came through for me once I got here like they said they would. Now I’m stuck with _this_ shit… Thanks, fuckers, have fun in the Lost Souls’ Room…”

“I’m sorry.” Lydia wondered exactly what Beetlejuice’s death sentence was. Somehow she guessed he hadn’t gotten off as lightly as the ghosts in the attic.

“What are _you_ sorry for? You didn’t screw me over too, did ya?” now his voice rose so much that she tried to cover her ears before she remembered it was pointless.

“No. I’m just frustrated on your behalf.” Lydia tried to explain instead. “That seems annoying. I think I can understand… Once my parents figured out that they couldn’t cash in on the ghosts in this house, they turned them into babysitters for me instead. Meanwhile it feels like the ghosts are still trying to control us by playing along. At least they’re doing a good job of controlling _me_.”

“Well, Lyds. Looks like all we’ve got is each other.”

“Good.” She replied, firmly.

He scoffed. “You’re one weird kid…”

Then she heard the performative, pinpointed footsteps, much like the night before so that she could determine where he was. She could hear him pacing around her bed, maybe searching for a place to settle. Then, in that uncharacteristically vulnerable tone, he spoke again.

“Hey, ya mind if I—I mean, I don’t suppose I could…” She heard him shift, felt a slight, chilly pressure at the foot of her bed, like someone was deciding whether to place a bag of ice there, then it disappeared again. “Nevermind.”

“You can sit there, if that’s what you’re trying to ask me.”

“Aw, great!” then the pressure returned, tenfold. A formless, frigid mass settled at the edge so dramatically it made her slide down her mattress. She scrambled back into place on the sloping bed, pulling her blankets along with her, trying not to be obvious about how cold she suddenly was. Luckily, he seemed oblivious. “Wow, this is some real rich shit right here, Lyds. You know how long it’s been since I’ve been allowed on one of these things? At _least_ a couple hundred years…”

“I have to sleep eventually.” She cut off the awkward praise a moment later, firmly telling it to herself as much as to him.

“Yeah. Right.” He answered coolly.

“Anyway, I’m sure you have plenty of things you need to be doing, too.” She continued.

“Oh yeah, for sure. Got me a full schedule on the other side tonight. Got some mostly-intact dead chicks waiting for me right now. In fact, they’re probably wondering where I’m at.”

“In that case, goodnight, Beetlejuice.” Lydia said, wondering why she could feel in any way jealous to hear something like that.

“Goodnight, Lyds.” He replied. The frigid pressure at the foot of the bed rearranged itself and then settled. He seemed to have taken the form of something along the lines of a cat or a small dog. Even so, it felt weird and oddly lurid to let him onto her bed.

Lydia kept herself distracted thinking about who Beetlejuice might’ve been before he died. It was the last thing she remembered before she fell asleep.

To her delight, the plate had not been overturned like the night before. She inspected Beetlejuice’s shrine the next morning, discovering that the apple had decayed rapidly overnight, the once-shining, pale mottled skin now covered with brown spots and a veil of wispy white mold. That and the empty water glass made her feel almost proud. At least she was grateful she’d found something nice for him.

Although her success energized her, Lydia’s lack of sleep was taking a toll on her. At school she fell asleep on her desk, waking up to a scowling teacher and snickering classmates. At least nobody said anything about the thousands of black and white stripes she’d doodled trying to stay awake—but she didn’t get away with it entirely.

After class, her friends sought her out, ushering her away from the other girls to speak to her alone. Lydia tried to focus on the setting, savoring the gathering fall leaves at the base of the trees.

“You fell asleep in class again today!” Prudence spoke first.

“Doesn’t everyone do that sometimes?” Lydia had a feeling she already knew where this was going, but she actually liked these kids and decided to let them carry on with it.

“Well, the thing is…” Bertha tried to explain. Being socially awkward young people as they all were, nobody really knew how to navigate the subject. “If there’s ever anything you need to tell us, will you?”

“Yeah, and we don’t care if it’s anything weird. We won’t think less of you.” Prudence tried to sound reassuring.

“Well…” Lydia could guess what they were so concerned about, so she tried to be somewhat transparent with them. “If it means anything, I have to leave school early on Friday to see my stepmom’s therapist.”

“Oh…” the other girls were silent for a moment, then Prudence added, “Good luck.”

“I’m also thinking about having a Halloween party.” Lydia tried to perk them up with some good news, and it worked. Now that she’d cheered them up with a commitment some time from now, she’d have to postpone working on her suicide note a little longer. Feeling that she could trust them by this point, she decided to confess something else. “Can I tell you a secret? I have this other friend, too… and he might be at the party. At least I really hope he can come, somehow.”

“ _He_?” the girls remarked.

“Yes, he. But he’s just a friend, really. I do like him a lot, and I feel like we know each other better than anyone else sometimes.” At the girls’ dreamy looks, she clarified. “But really, he’s just a good friend. But I hope that we can be friends for a long time. He’s different, but he’s also one of _us_. Oh, and my parents can’t know about it, okay?”

“I get it,” Prudence assured her at last.

“If he’s your friend, he’s our friend, too.” Bertha agreed. “And we promise we won’t tell anyone.”

Lydia wasn’t sure she’d made her point, but it was nice to know that someone out there didn’t completely judge her for having something confusing going on with a strange guy. At least it was confusing for her—she had some idea of how Beetlejuice felt, but she still didn’t know why she wanted to be around him so much if not to simply be his friend.

That night over dinner, Lydia shocked her parents by being the first one to speak.

“Delia. Thank you for the cookies you brought me last night. They were delicious.”

Her parents looked nearly as aghast as the first time they’d forcibly performed Harry Belafonte for their dinner guests.

“Why, Lydia, that’s very kind of you to say that,” her father responded first.

“Yes, really.” Delia agreed sheepishly.

“Is there something I could get from you?” Lydia pointedly met Delia’s eyes, watching her wilt. When Delia struggled momentarily for an answer, Lydia continued. “Could I have just a little bit of your sculpting medium? Something that can air dry. It’s for school.”

“Why… of course!” Delia seemed to experience a range of emotions, but she eventually settled on being flattered. “We’ll go to my studio and I’ll give you some clay after dinner.”

“Is there something else I could get?” Lydia persisted. “Do we have any lemons?”

“Lemons? For school?” her father was the first to wise up.

“I’m going to try to lighten my hair.” Lydia realized something about lying in that moment, and it was that it really took some commitment, and it just got harder the longer it went on.

After dinner her parents looked through their cupboards and found only a couple of old limes in the liquor case. Keeping a straight face and insisting that it would work was not easy, and Lydia could barely force a smile for them as she stole away to her room with fruit and art supplies.

The weirdness didn’t end there. Now she was struggling to work with a new medium, as well as a new subject. She didn’t know why she felt so compelled to do this, and for whom—but she worked and pondered her feelings.

His attention felt special.

Having someone to pay attention to felt special.

She tried not to get frustrated working with the new clay, taking her time, doing it over again when she couldn’t get it the way she wanted it the first time. Eventually she found a shape she liked, sort of a large asymmetrical medallion with a raised beetle motif in the center. After she studied it for some time, she etched the smallest initials, “BJ,” beneath the design, just enough for it to feel right and distinguish it from a school project to say the least.

Leaving it alone to dry for now, she finished her school work and set up the shrine on her dresser. She cleaned up the moldy apple and replaced it with one of the fresh limes. Hopefully it would work for now. At least she could still offer him some more water.

Putting the finishing touches on the room and excitedly snuffing her candle, she called him,

“Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice!”

A terribly powerful gust of cold air swept over her from behind, making her flinch and gasp a little.

“Hey, you!” she laughed it off even though goosebumps prickled all over her skin where he’d touched her.

“Who, me?” he answered quickly, cutely. It might’ve helped that she’d already respectfully closed her eyes before staggering to her bed.

She made herself comfortable with her face under the blanket, listening to him walk around the room.

“Heh, interesting…” he seemed to acknowledge that night’s offerings. “Hey, Lyds?”

“Yes?” she answered coolly.

“I was thinkin’ about something while I was waiting for you to call—I mean, I was thinking earlier… why don’t I just hang around until you dip out, then I can eat and leave later?”

“Oh? Why the change?” she asked, wondering if she should be concerned.

“Well… I had this idea that you might be losing too much sleep staying up listenin’ to me eat all night.”

She fought the urge to sit up and confront him. “How can I be sure you’re just going to leave when you’re supposed to? Why do you care if I sleep anyway?” She scolded him somewhat humbly from her bed.

“ _They_ catch on if you start acting weird,” he said smugly, then lowered his voice to grumble, annoyed, “…doesn’t help if you want to go around _telling_ them about all the dead guys you talk to…”

“Hey! You were spying on me today, weren’t you?”

“Lyds…” he muttered her name, amused. “You really don’t get it? Once you start making shrines for a guy, he’s never _really_ gonna stop hanging out. Make sense?”

“I suppose…” Lydia tried to wrap her head around the seriousness of the situation, too busy instead being amused to have her own personal ghost. A ghost that waited for her while she was gone, even? The idea made her smile in the dark. Meanwhile she could hear him pacing closer to the bed. “Did you hang out with me during that _boring_ lesson this afternoon?” she asked casually when she was certain she could feel him standing over her.

“Nah.” He said plainly, confirming his proximity. “That school shit never was for me.”

“I don’t like it much, either.”

“Whatever. You’re good at it.”

“I can’t believe _you’re_ nagging me about school now, too!” she whined, although she couldn’t help but laugh when she felt the cold, dense pressure settle at the foot of her bed. She once again scrambled against his weight making her sink down the sloping bed.

“Alright, now sleep, you freak.” He barked, even as she continued to laugh.

“Beetlejuice!” she delighted in saying the name and feeling him flinch dramatically on the other side of her blanket.

“ _What_?” he whined back.

“Do you ever dance?” now she was laughing thinking about all the ridiculous antics with the attic ghosts and their Harry Belafonte songs. Surely a ghost like Beetlejuice would have even better tricks to show off.

“Definitely not with any _alive_ chicks!” He stammered. “Why, who’s asking?”

“No one, I guess I just wanted to know more about you.” She insisted, deciding not to push him on it, too shy to admit what she’d been thinking anyway. “I liked it when you told me a little bit about yourself the other day. I’d like to know more.”

“Nosy.” He scoffed.

“We’re friends, aren’t we?” Lydia pushed right back. “Friends talk to each other about stuff. You should tell me about you! I’ll tell you anything about me that you don’t already know.”

“Weird. Guess that’s not such a bad deal…” he muttered back, then went silent for a few moments. He shifted again, somehow becoming less dense in the process. “Well… sure, I dance sometimes.”

“Me too.” She said, trying to encourage him. Then, considering that he’d likely already heard her plans, she tried a different angle. “Can I ask you something else? Would you like to come to my Halloween party?”

“You want _me_ at your party?”

“Of course!” She insisted.

He cleared his throat and proceeded to mumble and grumble to himself about it for some time.

“…party with a bunch of _alive_ people, sounds boring…” she could make out, “…pretty busy schedule these days— that’s an extra busy night, Halloween…”

“I understand if you can’t make it.” Lydia tried.

“I never said I can’t make it!” he snapped. “I just gotta make some arrangements, that’s all.”

She grinned to herself and shifted until she was comfortable to sleep with the icy animal-sized lump at her feet. But then, just as her eyelids grew heavy, the lump moved. She could feel an otherwise formless mass take shape—she could feel a largely-built man’s frame stretching out alongside her on her bed. An arm, a _tangible_ arm, reached over her to trail across her blanket, making her shiver.

“Beetlejuice.” She said firmly. He froze, didn’t speak or react. Another moment passed and she warned him. “Don’t take up too much space on my bed.”

“Right…” the person-shaped form started to retract back to the spot he’d originally occupied.

“You can take up _some_ space.” She gave in after another moment’s thought. Hesitantly, he returned, careful to keep beside her and not against her. She stuffed more of her blanket between them for good measure, trying to stay warm as much as anything else.

“Goodnight.” She remembered to say once he’d held otherwise still for some time.

“Goodnight, Lyds.” His voice was once again distant from the icy form lying next to her. It helped to ease the awkward tension between them.

Lydia slept.

When she woke, the first thing she did was rush to her dresser to inspect the shrine.

She practically squealed to find the desiccated lime, completely dehydrated into a hard, shriveled, waxy shell. He’d finished his water, too. Now she was daydreaming about what she’d like to give him next, and she was distracted by a movement in the corner of her eye. She whirled around to see what was in her peripheral, and found nothing at first.

Then, she stared at her nightstand and spotted it. She crossed the room to find it—a brand new paper-wrapped razor blade like the ones she used to find in her father’s tool shed many years ago. She picked it up. It was quite real, where it had come from was no question.

“Thank you…” she spoke into her empty room while she tucked the twisted present away into her school things.

Now she had some idea of what she’d like to give Beetlejuice next.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ch 2 summary (contains spoilers):
> 
> Lydia steals an apple for Beetlejuice’s shrine. They talk, headcanon-heavy lore about Beetlejuice’s life. Lydia lets him sit on her bed. Lore about ghost “eating.” Lydia falls asleep in class and gets called out by her school friends; she collects art supplies and more fruit for offerings from her parents, then makes more stuff for Beetlejuice’s shrine. She calls him, realizes that he follows her now, but she’s still down to let him sit on her bed and she invites him to her Halloween party. When she wakes up the next morning, she finds that he has gifted her with a new razor blade.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *This chapter contains graphic self harm.*
> 
> See end notes for detailed summary w/ spoilers.

School was a blur. Lydia could only focus on the bundle in her pocket. She’d wrapped the gifted razor blade in two sheets of paper and tucked it away, horrified to think of losing it. She was only grateful she’d found it in her room before her parents had.

The rest of the evening plans were cancelled. Getting that blade unwrapped was all she could think of. Her oblivious parents seemed amused that she hurried through her dinner, eagerly eating more than she had in weeks. Anything to keep them off her back tonight.

With that in mind, she also poured two extra glasses of water and made her way into the attic. Hopefully a refreshment would keep the ghosts occupied and out of her way that night as well.

Now that everyone was taken care of, she stole away into her room and rushed through as much of her schoolwork as she could stand. She managed just the stuff that was due right away and lost her patience on the rest. The rest of her work forgotten, she dug it out of the bag—the precious blade. It was literally brand new, never once taken out of the little cardboard sleeve it was packaged in. she held it to the light to admire the flawless edge, already fantasizing about the ease with which it would open her skin.

Her elbow shuffled the contents of her desk. In her haste she’d forgotten about her art project from the night before. Setting aside the blade just for now, she looked over the offering she’d made instead. She still didn’t have all the proper stuff around to work with clay, but she certainly didn’t want to keep pressing Delia for supplies and wind up getting her involved. Regardless, it looked good, good enough that she tried to imagine the flattered grunt Beetlejuice might make to see it.

She laid the razor on the medallion-like disc and slipped them both under her blouse, tucking them into her skirt band to keep the bundle close to her body. She checked her silhouette to see if it was too obvious. Indeed, she was so thin these days that the small disc was enough to change the way her top sat—but it looked good enough and she had a feeling so one was going to catch her tonight anyway.

The upstairs bathroom was pretty well her personal domain, at least it felt like her own territory when she locked herself in and prepared. A splash of rubbing alcohol on her new blade made her feel like _something_ about what she was doing this evening was okay.

Then, she started. Unceremoniously as any teenager sneaking off to a bathroom, she sought her only source of carnal gratification.

“Oh!” she couldn’t help but react when the extremely sharp edge sank much deeper into her flesh than she’d anticipated. It had been a long time since she’d had such a proper tool and she’d forgotten to take it easy. She moved for a tissue and an unsettling amount of blood promptly gushed out of the new cut, trickling dramatically down her arm. She tried to ignore it and let it slow on its own while she laid down a few lighter slices, testing the edge. Alas, the first cut was still bleeding so much that she’d already used up a stack of tissues.

She readied more and tried to clean off the wound to inspect it, but the continued rush of blood made her start to worry so much she almost forgot what she’d set out to do this evening.

Blood never quite behaved the way she envisioned it. Holding her arm over her crafted medallion and letting it drip didn’t work. The viscosity was already changing as the wound attempted to close. She winced at the stabbing, fluttering pain along the cut while she tried to wipe some of the blood directly onto the surface. At least several bloody fingerprints decorated it now, not as elegant as she’d imagined, but the point was made.

Surely that would help Beetlejuice understand how she felt, at least a little. Maybe now he could see how seriously she took their sinister friendship, and understand that she meant it when she promised to marry him one day, whatever that meant for him as a tormented spirit.

She felt lightheaded as she finished cleaning up the bathroom. It really was a lot of blood—not enough to make her sick, but enough to make her worry about the cut closing on its own. It had not yet stopped oozing blood. She wrapped more tissue around the spot and hoped her sleeve would keep it in place long enough to steal off to her bedroom.

Luckily, she was home free. She dashed out of the bathroom and tiptoed through the hall, trying to slow her racing heart once she’d made it to her room. She was sure that she and her bloody medallion had not been noticed, but it was some time before she could get her heart to stop racing.

Pulling herself together for bed was oddly difficult that night—she was too anxious and distracted to remember the proper order of things. She noticed the distorted pattern when she hastily blew her candle out instead of properly snuffing it, filling her bedroom with sooty-tasting smoke.

She waved her hand to fan it out of her face and almost knocked the shrine right off of her dresser. She rearranged it and then gripped the edges, steadying herself. She wasn’t exactly dizzy, but she wondered how much blood she’d lost in the bathroom.

Thinking of it, she looked over her things and realized she’d left the razor blade beside the sink. Her stomach dropped as she raced to her door—she stopped before opening it just in time to hear the attic ghosts whispering to each other in the hallway.

“Oh, come on, Adam, I’m sure she won’t mind.” Barbara Maitland’s comically loud stage-whisper might’ve been cute at a different time. “I just want to tell her goodnight and thanks for the water.”

“She’s already gone to sleep. Can’t you smell her candle?” Adam Maitland insisted, equally loud.

Between their ‘whispering’ and Beetlejuice’s disgustingly loud eating, Lydia wondered if the dead had any idea how noisy they all were.

Regardless, she held her breath and waited for the ghosts to sort things out for themselves and go back to whatever it was that they did at night. As soon as it was safe to leave again, she dashed back to the bathroom and threw on the lights to collect her blade.

Of course, it was not there.

Now her heart was really going. She started to get frantic the longer she couldn’t find it. Maybe she’d brought it back to the room with her after all, but she hadn’t seen it before she’d come back out. Maybe she’d dropped it on the way back… her chest tightened at that thought, and it continued to sit heavily as she made her way back to her room.

Once again her search turned up nothing. That meant she must’ve dropped it. Although she was sure she remembered leaving it in the bathroom, but her hands had been occupied managing her bleeding wounds and her gift for Beetlejuice.

Nonetheless, she found herself on her hands and knees in the darkened hallway, holding her breath, gingerly feeling for the blade on the floor. It was a low moment and her heart sank even lower when it did not turn up. The other possibility was that it had already been found and taken, probably with the intention of confronting her with it later.

Lydia sat on her bed for some time, just trying to calm down thinking about how the next morning was going to go, especially because it was the day of her therapy appointment.

At least she had Beetlejuice… he was all that she had at this point, and tonight she decided she really needed to spend some time with him.

Feeling a little cathartic and exhausted, she laid back and covered her face, speaking his name under her blanket,

“Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice…”

She held still and listened for him, realizing again that she’d completely forgotten the usual order of things, but it was too late now.

At least she heard him take a couple of slow footsteps now, although he seemed to hesitate wherever he was.

“Babes?” he called out to her first, sounding genuinely confused.

“I’m here. Sorry, I forgot and went to bed first.” She answered, keeping hidden out of habit.

“Huh? Who’s that?” he asked, staying wherever he was.

“Me!” she tried to sound chipper for his sake.

“Oh yeah? What’s your name, then?” he challenged. He was completely serious.

“Beetlejuice, you know my name…”

“Sounds like you only know _my_ name, pal!” He grumbled in a deepened tone.

She wondered what his problem was until she realized that it was probably another ghost etiquette issue. Maybe he really couldn’t recognize her unless he saw her first.

“I’m going to come out so you can look at me…” she announced before sitting up and opening her eyes. She looked around the empty room, half searching for him, half hoping he was searching for her. “See? It’s me, Lydia. Better?”

He didn’t respond. She hoped that was also just some ghost thing as she laid back down. She pulled the blanket over her face and wondered if she’d offended him.

Just then the entire cover was snatched back off of her at once, ripped away so suddenly and violently it made her flinch and cry out.

“ _What is this?”_ Beetlejuice screamed, practically shrieked down at her. He stood at her bedside, her blankets clutched in one fist, the blood-stained medallion in the other. He gestured with it, shaking it toward her accusingly, so outraged that his face distorted hideously to reflect his anger. His already disgustingly-bleached irises contracted, his teeth bared so far his pitch-black gums glistened. “ _What is this shit_?”

She cowered below him in her bed as he lurched slower, swinging the medallion at her with intention.

“Seriously? I thought you would like it!” she insisted truthfully, baffled, flinching to avoid being clipped.

“You thought I would like this shit? _This_?” even as his face grew more and more twisted, tiny little mushrooms began to sprout from his neck. As he gnarled and raged, the little caps grew right before Lydia’s eyes. She wished she could focus a little more on something so spectacular—but right now what concerned her was that Beetlejuice had tossed aside her blanket and was now reaching for her. She tried to get away but he’d already seized a handful of her nightgown, pulling her across the bed with preternatural strength.

She yelped in terror then lost her voice to feel him lift her just enough to glare at her more closely. He thrust the medallion at her again.

“I don’t fuck around with this kinda shit! Get it?”

“I didn’t know!” she whimpered. “You gave me a razor blade. I thought you might’ve wanted something like that!”

“You don’t know what the fuck you’re doing, doing you?! Do you think this is pretend?” he continued to rant at her. “You’re just a shitty little spoiled brat who needs to play at an aesthetic above all else because that’s how Daddy runs a household! You think calling me into your little witchy-princess room every night is a _game_?”

A tear escaped her. Hateful yellow eyes spotted it and only became more outraged to watch it roll down her cheek.

“You didn’t even think about what it means to a guy when you build a shrine for him, you just thought it would _look_ cool!”

“Sorry I didn’t know it was a shrine!” she wheezed. “But it was for you, always…”

She crumpled back on her bed when he released her. He shouted again, incoherently, then underhanded-threw the medallion at the wall beside Lydia’s bed, shattering it to pieces.

The shock of pottery breaking made her cower and cover herself. It was so loud, surely someone else in the house had to have heard it. But when she dared to sit up again, she heard no one reacting, and even worse, Beetlejuice was gone again.

“Beetlejuice? Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice!” she immediately called for him, but he didn’t respond, not even to silence her. She waited another moment for something, anything else to happen. But no concerned parent manifested at the door, and Beetlejuice did not return, even when Lydia called him again and again.

Somehow she found herself out of her bed, huddled on the floor, gathering the broken pieces of the medallion. Seeing it scattered on the floor in such a way brought out more tears. She held herself and cried it out for a few minutes, staring at the pathetic remains of what she now understood to be, somehow, a rude gesture.

Now, she didn’t know what to do. She had to be awake in a few hours to prepare for school and therapy, and she was crying on her floor because a ghost didn’t like her blood offering.

She wrapped the broken medallion in a handkerchief and hid it in her schoolbag, realizing too late now that she had evidence to hide. There was a chance she’d still get caught when they confronted her about the razor blade.

Lydia couldn’t get comfortable in her bed. The room seemed unseasonably warm. The extra deep cut throbbed angrily when it brushed against anything, only serving to remind her of how dumb she’d been.

She just hoped she hadn’t pissed Beetlejuice off forever. To her horror, she realized after inspecting the shrine again that she’d also forgotten to offer him any water. She refilled the glass as soon as she noticed it, but she was sure it was already too late.

Dawn came too soon. When she saw the first daylight creep over the hills, she knew that sleep would not come. It gave her a chance to finish her schoolwork and look for the razor blade one last time.

The schoolwork was easy. The blade still could not be found.

At least Delia was pleased to see Lydia at the breakfast table bright and early. Indeed she was too pleased and so was Charles Deetz. If her parents knew anything about the razor blade they certainly weren’t letting on to it.

Nobody seemed concerned at all, and Lydia was off to school like a perfectly normal day.

Normal, except that when she reached into her schoolbag to get her homework, she found the little ghost notebook. It was the one her parents kept in a safe, the one that the ghosts in the attic used to snitch on her. The one she’d originally called Beetlejuice to steal for her, what felt like so long ago.

But it seemed that he’d finally done it, even after what had happened last night. Lydia carefully took it from her bag, thumbing through the pages, reading the notes to confirm that it was in fact the real notebook. Most of the things in it she’d already been confronted for—some of it was new to her and made her scoff and roll her eyes. Then she came to the end of it and gasped when several small beetles crawled out from a turning page and then disappeared after falling to the floor.

That at least confirmed it was Beetlejuice’s doing. Knowing that really helped to lighten her mood. She was smiling and participating in class by the time Delia came to pick her up and take her into the city.

The drive wasn’t entirely unpleasant, either. Delia still seemed oblivious to anything that had happened the night before. No questions about a razor blade, no mention of yelling or pottery-breaking coming from her bedroom, nothing. Lydia chose to simply enjoy watching the autumn countryside out the window instead of wondering why she’d gotten away with it.

Dr. Grace was not the first therapist Lydia had been taken to throughout the years, and she had a feeling that it would not be her last. The office was furnished with leather couches in very modern colors, glass surfaces and meaningless abstract paintings—all that and the fact that it was far away from the small town they lived in must’ve been why Delia insisted on coming here.

The first round of interrogation was pretty typical and a lot of it had to do with her mother’s death and whether it affected her relationship with Delia. Lydia navigated these questions with seasoned ease, having done so for longer than she ever remembered knowing her mother.

Then came the questions about her cutting—why she did it, how she felt when she did it, et cetera. They were sterile questions asked by an overpaid, glorified counselor who was trained to act like she was doing something to help. Lydia was also not unfamiliar with the routine.

But Dr. Grace was different than the counselors in New York. Dr. Grace had an opinion, and it certainly reflected a little more of a “local” attitude.

“Lydia, you might think it’s _fun_ at your age to upset your parents like this—by putting those awful marks on your young, beautiful body. But just how do you think you’ll feel about it when you get a boyfriend one day and he sees all those places where you’ve cut yourself?”

Somehow, this was the comment that annoyed Lydia enough to break. She didn’t go into these things trying to disrespect adults that were just trying to do their jobs, but she also didn’t feel like she needed to accept such a creepy scolding from a practical stranger.

“I already have a boyfriend, and he doesn’t mind it.” Lydia stretched the truth just enough to push Dr. Grace’s last nerves. “But I think he’s a little squeamish about all the blood…”

“Oh?” Dr. Grace instantly perked up at this. “ _You_ have a boyfriend, Lydia? That’s very interesting. And what is his name?”

“I can’t tell you.” Lydia said, too quickly. Then, to the therapist’s raised eyebrow, she added, “My parents don’t know about him.”

“I see.” Dr. Grace seemed momentarily satisfied. “Do you know him from school?”

“No, I go to an all-girls school,” Lydia reminded her. Then, figuring it was as good a time as any, she continued. “Well, that and he’s dead.”

“He’s… dead?” Dr. Grace frantically reached for her set-aside notebook, rushing to uncap her pen.

“Yes. He is in fact, quite dead. He’s all rotten and rigor-mortised and everything.” Lydia said, suppressing a wicked grin. “Although I don’t know how exactly he died. He won’t tell me much about himself. We talk sometimes at night when everyone else in the house is asleep. I wish we could talk more. All I know is, I’m going to be his hideous undead corpse bride one day.”

Dr. Grace sighed and looked at the clock, then back to her notes.

“Why didn’t you tell me all this at the _beginning_ of your time?”

“Tell you what? That I have a dead boyfriend?” Lydia continued to ramble to the therapist’s amusement. “You won’t tell my parents, will you?”

“I’m _absolutely_ telling your parents that you hear voices in your room at night…”

Delia, of course, listened to the therapist’s report and disagreed politely.

“Well, I appreciate your concern, but my step-daughter is, in fact, very talented in these metaphysical matters.” Delia explained politely in the waiting room after hearing Dr. Grace’s report.

“You believe her when she tells you she communicates with the dead?” the therapist insisted.

“I know she does.” Delia defended. “Our house is haunted by the previous owners. Quite cute, actually—I’ve interacted with them myself. We even keep tabs on Lydia together in a little notebook. I’ve even brought it with me just in case it came up.”

“Oh, boy…” Dr. Grace was clearly not amused, and neither was Delia when she pawed frantically through her purse searching for the notebook that was currently in the bottom of Lydia’s schoolbag.

“I knew I took it out of the safe last night…” Delia muttered to herself. “Damn! I thought I brought it with me…”

Now Lydia just tried to stay cool and play along, grateful that nobody wanted to look in her bag right about then.

When everything had carried on long enough that Delia got embarrassed and stormed out, Lydia realized that she’d been the cause of all of it. They drove back through the city in tense silence. Lydia felt like she should apologize, but she wasn’t ready to come clean about anything.

Luckily, Delia was the first to break the silence.

“Sorry that happened the way it did.” Delia spoke. “I should’ve warned you not to mention the ghosts…”

“I did it on purpose. I didn’t like her.” Lydia at least admitted something to soothe her conscience.

“Great.” Delia sighed. Then, she changed her tune. “You know, I’ve been thinking about trying to find a different therapist anyway. I think she’s going too heavy on my prescription—I can’t believe I forgot that notebook!”

“Sorry…” Lydia said, shrinking in her seat.

“Don’t be,” Delia drove in silence a little longer, then perked up again. “Hey, I forgot to ask, what did you end up making with that clay?”

“Oh, the clay…” Lydia realized she also still had the broken medallion in her bag. “Well, I… I accidentally broke it and I got so mad I threw it away.”

Delia suddenly started laughing out loud. Lydia hadn’t expected the sudden but pleasant reaction.

“I’m sorry, Lydia. It’s just that I’ve done that so many times myself.” Delia chuckled to herself and Lydia forced a smile for her sake. At least the subject would keep her busy. Perhaps she’d finally found something to live vicariously through Lydia. “You really should learn to express your feelings with _art_ , Lydia… Maybe you can do something with your photography! If you get a portfolio together I can try to get you a showing somewhere…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ch 3 summary (contains spoilers):
> 
> Chapter very quickly opens to a graphic self-harm scene. Lydia sneaks off w/ her new razor blade and her art for Beetlejuice to christen it in blood. She cuts too deep and gets freaked when it takes too long to stop bleeding. She realizes she forgot the razor blade and almost gets caught by the attic ghosts when she goes back for it. She loses the blade entirely, goes to bed a little flustered. Beetlejuice doesn’t trust/recognize her and then flips out very dramatically and angrily over the blood offering. He roasts her pretty hard and breaks her art, then he leaves and doesn’t came back that night even though she’s pretty devastated over it. Next morning she finds that he came through and stole the notebook for her after all. Therapist sequence; Lydia trolls the therapist by insisting that Beetlejuice is her boyfriend. Delia ends up having to get involved and gets embarrassed when she discovers that she ‘lost’ the ghost notebook, but it all ends pretty well…


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...bit of self-indulgent fluff in this one o.o
> 
> (see the end notes for detailed summary with spoilers!)

Now that the therapy session was out of the way and her parents were satisfied, the weekend had arrived and Lydia felt like she could relax.

After dinner with her much happier parents, she drew a bath and soaked her scabs. The deep gash had finally mostly closed, all caked with black lint from her sleeve. She cringed picking at it, cleaning it, inspecting it. Even with the distraction, she wondered where that razor blade had gotten off to. With a wound this size, she knew she should probably wait for it to heal a little before laying into herself again…

Lost in thought, she got out of her bath and started to dry off. She grabbed her comb and then wiped some of the steam off the mirror. Her reflection, and Beetlejuice standing behind her, stared back at her.

She gasped and whirled around impulsively, swinging for him with her comb-armed fist, but he wasn’t there. Now she could hear him, cracking up behind her, his voice coming through the mirror.

“Gotcha!” he finally said when she turned back to scowl at him in the reflection.

“How long have you been watching me?” she scolded, pulling her towel tighter around herself.

“Don’t worry, I stopped being able to see ya when it got all steamy…” he continued to be amused by himself. He bent forward to brace his elbow on the mirror’s frame as if it was an actual windowsill. “Anyway, don’t stop on account of me.”

She met his eye—the way he grinned casually as if he hadn’t smashed a medallion against her wall the night before kind of annoyed her at this point. She smirked and started to unwrap her towel with intention.

“Yeah, here we go! Take it off, sweetie!” he reacted eagerly until she draped the towel over the mirror. “Alright, be that way… Babes? Hey, Babes?”

“I can’t hear you from under there, what?” She replied, pulling on her nightgown on in the limited privacy. She could hear him, albeit muffled on the other side of the towel.

“C’mon, Lyds. Real quick, I gotta ask you something. It’s really important!” Beetlejuice pleaded.

“What is it?” she whipped the towel off of the mirror again now that she was decent. He looked almost helplessly cute for a moment, a genuine concerned expression plastered on his decaying face. Then, as soon as she’d seen it, it was gone.

“So, I’m your _boyfriend_ now?” Now he just wore a familiar lecherous grin.

“Ugh! You’ve really been following me all day, haven’t you?” she intentionally didn’t confirm or deny it, intrigued that he’d thought to mention it at all.

“Not all day. Just long enough to hear that wacko headshrinker giving you a hard time for talkin’ to me.”

“Well…” Lydia sighed, remember the ridiculous scene she’d dragged poor Delia into. “I guess I really shouldn’t tell people that I talk to ghosts. _Especially_ a therapist.”

“Now you’re figuring it out.” He said smugly, leaning on the mirror frame again, grinning down at her. “What did you think of that thing I brought you?”

“The notebook?” Lydia remembered now that it was, in fact, the reason she’d called him in the first place. She hadn’t realized that getting him involved would cause so much trouble for the rest of the people in her family. “Well… thanks, I guess. I sort of figured out I didn’t need it after all.”

“Hm. Okay.” He said sharply, clearly disappointed by her answer. “You know what? You can steal your own shit from now on.”

“I’m glad you remembered. Thank you. I really do appreciate it.” She insisted. “I also really appreciated the razor blade…”

“Ugh.” He waved at her flippantly, dismissively. “I wouldn’t ‘a given it to you if I’d known you were gonna get so weird about it.”

“Gosh, sorry…” she wasn’t sure why she should apologize, just that she did. Thinking further on it, she admitted, “I lost it, anyway.”

“Nah, that was me,” he also admitted. “I took it back when you were done with it. Glad I did, too. You kinda creeped me out.”

“ _You_ took it?! Jeez, I was so worried!” she couldn’t help but raise her voice. “Can I have it back?”

“No.” He grinned at last, laughed when she rolled her eyes. “You’re too dumb about getting busted. You should figure out a different place to cut on where everyone’s not gonna see it.”

“I can’t believe _you’re_ nagging me for it now, too!” She grimaced to think about it and switched off the light, ditching him in the bathroom mirror.

“I honestly don’t care if you cut yourself into ribbons, Babes,” her bedroom mirror insisted when she lit a candle in her room. “I’m just saying you should have a little more _style_ about it.”

“Style? Ugh!” she snatched up her blanket and moved to cover that mirror as well.

“Wait, Lyds!” he begged her as soon as he saw her coming with it. He sat on the reflection of the dresser top, actually perched weightlessly atop the little shine. “There’s just one more thing I wanna tell you. Please?”

Lydia stifled a giggle to see him on the little platform. She wondered if he knew he was doing it—either way he seemed pretty comfortable there, almost like a cat sitting in a box.

“Go on…” she at last gave in and let him see her smile.

“Don’t worry about putting anything out for me tonight, okay?”

Her smile fell. It wasn’t what she’d expected.

“Does this have anything to do with that medallion I tried to give you last night?” she sheepishly asked.

“Huh? _Ugh_ , no, and don’t talk about that again.” He sneered just thinking about it, then quickly moved on. “Nothing like that, Babes. In fact, I was gonna surprise ya, but… I got a little something lined up for us tonight. What do you think of that?”

Lydia was intrigued, although she instantly envisioned a surprise along the lines of the wedding she’d once been a part of. She dismissed the thought, insisting to herself that things were a little less coercive these days, and pressed on.

“Like a date? That’s sweet.”

“Really?” he asked in that uncharacteristically vulnerable tone. As soon as he said it, the little fungus she’d seen growing on him the night before started up again, sprouting from several points on his neck and chest. It quickly grew, tiny caps rising on long stems. It looked like the little enoki she used to get on top of hot and sour soup back in New York. He noticed it and seized it by the handful, ripping clumps of it off of himself and tossing it aside.

“Are you okay?” she asked, concerned as the mushrooms continued to grow as fast as he could rip them out.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m great. So what do you say?” he carried on, trying to act casual. “Do you wanna come check out my place or not?”  
  
“Sure! I didn’t even know that was a thing!” Lydia tried to politely meet his eyes instead of gawking at the rapidly sprouting fungus. “How do we get there?”

“I got it covered. There’s just one thing you gotta do for me…” he stared back at her, oddly intimate to hold her gaze. “Will you?”

Lydia smiled back for a moment before she called him,

“Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice!”

At once she shivered at chilly night air on her bare arms. She glanced around, quickly assessing that she was no longer in her room, but standing in the backyard, just close enough to the house that she could see shadows cast on the lawn from the living room lights. Beetlejuice stood beside her—she could barely see him in the dark, but she could certainly smell that he was physically with her now.

“Cute nightie.” A grappling, disembodied hand tugged at her hem.

“You!” she hissed and tried to swat at something that wasn’t there.

“You’d better be quiet. They can hear _you_.” He gestured at the house. “Come on, we got work to do.”

“Work?” she repeated, baffled when he thrust a long-handled shovel at her.

“Look, ordinarily I’m not supposed to help you out, but I happen to like you and I’m gonna stretch the rules just a little bit this time.” He started to walk away, gesturing with his own shovel for her to follow him. “You still gotta contribute something, alright?”

“I wish you would’ve just settled for another apple.” She whined at him as he led her away from the house into the overgrown, unincorporated land behind the house.

“Hehehe…” Somehow it was oddly satisfying to hear him chuckle at her joke.

They didn’t go very far before they came to a large headstone she’d never seen there before.

It read “ _Here Lies Betelgeuse.”_

“That’s interesting. I didn’t know you spelled your name like that.” She couldn’t help but immediately comment.

“Huh? How’s it supposed to be spelled?” he asked, completely sincere.

She came to realize why she’d been handed a shovel. He gestured with his, pointing at the ground below the headstone.

“C’mon. You gotta be the one to break ground.” He announced loudly. Then he added, softer, “—technically I’m not supposed to help you at all…”

“So you said… I like you too, by the way.” Lydia told him. Then she took a genuine try at driving the shovel in her house shoes, but it was a pitiful attempt and she slipped right off the blade.

“It might go faster if you sing.” He told her while he’d leaned on his shovel and watched her struggle for some time.

“Okay. What would you like me to sing?” she asked, willing to try whatever ghostly trick he could recommend. She was already huffing for her breath. “Any requests?”

“I don’t care. Just sing something. Anything.”

She tried to think of something appropriate to the situation.

“Day-O! Day-ay-O!”

“Okay, anything but _that_.” Beetlejuice cut her off sharply, rolling his eyes until they fell out of the sockets.

True to his word, he eventually pitched in and helped dig once she started a different song.

“Coconut woman is calling out, and every day you can hear her shout…”

“Remind me to get you a different record one day,” he griped softly behind her.

She could only wonder what her parents would think if they came outside right now and saw her like this, singing and digging in the backyard in the middle of the night.

The work seemed to go unusually quick after all. At least, she found herself staring into a much deeper hole than she’d remember seeing a moment ago. At the bottom, predictably, was a coffin. Unearthed, it slowly began to open on its own. She saw stained, aged fabric and several dozen insects all scurrying out of the moonlight, but otherwise it was only a normal, empty coffin.

“Well, here it is. Home, sweet, home.” Beetlejuice gestured at the open casket. “Ladies first.”

“Uh… I have to ask. What is this?” she met his eyes carefully.

“I told you, I wanna show you around my place tonight.” He said, gesturing into the grave.

“I’m not sure I understand…” she said, trying to see whatever he saw there.

“Alright, alright. Ya twisted my arm. We’ll go together if that’s what you really want.” Then at once, he grabbed her and pulled her in close, wrapping his arms around her even as she impulsively struggled against his grasp.

“Beetlejuice!” she screamed his name. He was rigid, cold, his arms hugging the breath out of her—at least what little of it she could stand to gasp for with the close proximity of his rotten-meat smell. The dirty striped clothes sluffed soil and who-knows-what other particles all over her as she writhed against him. A clammy, dirty hand clapped over her mouth to silence her, and then he stepped back into the grave.

Lydia’s heart raced, instantly panicking when she imagined herself cramped against him inside of the tiny coffin, six feet of soil between them and fresh air.

He tipped backward slowly, head over heels, and they fell. She screamed inside of her head, bracing for the impact that never came.

As soon as they’d fallen, they were upright again. He still held her even though they stood— her insides continued to flutter as if still waiting to hit the bottom of the coffin.

“ _We’re standing.”_ She wheezed, pressing her face against him, desperate to feel a little less dizzy. She breathed into his chest, the miserable stench now comforting in its familiarity.

“Yep.” A hand on her back offered a helpful, grounding pat.

“I still feel like I’m falling!” she grimaced, almost nauseous. “It won’t stop.”

“Isn’t it great?” At least he grabbed her shoulders and eased her away from him, grinning down at her, wide and full of gnarled teeth. When she could not yet muster a reciprocal smile, he added, “You’ll get used to it… probably. You’ll be fine as long as you don’t forget that you have feet. That’s the only rule you gotta follow while you’re here.”

“Huh?” as soon as he said it, she gazed down at herself to see just what was so special about her feet. Indeed, she was surprised to see she’d been changed out of her house shoes into an elegant little pair of Victorian-looking boots that buttoned all the way to her ankle. “Cool!”

“That gonna work for ya?” he asked as she inspected the rest of the clothing she’d been changed into. The dress was a far cry from her nightgown. He’d put her in red again, this time something silken instead of lace. He also seemed to be admiring the outfit again judging by the few mushrooms blooming from his throat.

“It’s lovely, thank you.” She complimented, even though she’d just noticed the stains and water spots and really hoped that nobody had been buried in it.

“Well, what do you think of the place?” he prompted, gesturing around the space they were now in. She gasped when she realized that it was an uncanny copy of her own bedroom, although now all the surfaces were covered in thick dust and dirt. Cobwebs hung from the ceilings and moss grew on the furniture. A veil of moonlight through shredded curtains cast elongated shadows on the abandoned, decayed space. An ornate casket had replaced her bed—she saw it and glanced back to him, half accusing, half curious.

“This is where you _live_? Excuse me—this is your home?” she asked, settling on being amused. It helped that she was finally getting used to the fluttering sensation in her stomach like he promised.

“More or less...” he leaned against the raised casket as he spoke.

“Well, I hate how you decorated, but otherwise it’s cute.” She grinned back at him, laughing when he rolled his eyes and then jumped to attention remembering something.

“Hey, since you’re here now, I can give this back to you!” he threw open a drawer on the copy of her dresser, retrieving a handful of something. “Here ya go! Did ya miss it?” he held out an open palm, which was occupied with a clump of black hair.

“Ew! Is that mine?” she stifled a gag, wondering where it’d come from. “I don’t want that!”

“You mean I can keep it?” he exclaimed, then brought it to his face and took a hearty whiff. “Ah, makes me miss ya already.”

Lydia tried to find something to be flattered about as he lovingly tucked the hair into his jacket pocket. A moment later he snatched up her hand and pulled her to the door.

“C’mon, I gotta introduce you to someone.”

Interestingly, the ‘bedroom’ door opened directly to the outside—the outside which looked and felt like a dark, sinister playground in the middle of the night. He led her down a narrow street. Hunks of asphalt-like material jutted sharply from the ground like the remains of some sort of natural disaster, lit by just enough flickering, yellow streetlights to cast horrible, twisted shadows. An eerie, echoey church bell sounded again and again in the distance, eternally playing a single, dreadful tone. Smoke or fog or _something_ seemed to block most of the stars overhead.

In the distance, Lydia could see something moving, something big and dark and formless, inching around like a big worm on the ground.

“Aw, there he is. Hey, ya old bastard, get over here!” Beetlejuice called out to the monstrosity. “Check it out, I got me a date!” he turned back to Lydia and lowered his voice to mutter to her. “Hey, this guy’s kinda got a _thing_ , but he’s an old friend so just play it cool, okay?”

The shadowy form crept toward them. Lydia found herself desperately clutching Beetlejuice’s arm.

“This is my friend, Lydia Deetz.” Beetlejuice introduced her to the shapeless figure. Lydia remarked at how different it felt to hear him say her name. She wondered if it felt as special for him when she did the same.

A hideous, guttural sound emitted from the throbbing shadow.

“Uh, how do you do?” She tried to be polite, although she couldn’t help but tremble as they walked away from it.

“I go back a long ways with that guy…” Beetlejuice explained to her as he continued to lead her down the street. Lydia realized she was still clutching him tightly as if he might go away and leave her here. He, of course, allowed her to hang off of him; a few minutes later he patted her hand and pointed ahead of them.

“I gotta introduce you to this guy, too!” he gestured to a glistening puddle in the cracked asphalt ahead of them. As they approached, he at last pulled his arm free, crouching beside the puddle and cupping his hands around his mouth to scream into the water. “Hey, buddy! How the hell are ya! Dig it, I got a chick with me!”

Below them, the puddle began to churn and foam violently in response, steam billowing out of the agitated surface.

 _“Say hi!”_ Beetlejuice hissed, pinching Lydia’s elbow.

“Nice to meet you…” Lydia told the puddle as nicely as she could.

Then, they were off again, walking until Lydia could hear the most awful moaning. Ahead of them, a fairly extensively decayed corpse lay face-down, motionless in the street, moaning and wailing painfully. Predictably, Beetlejuice made a point to introduce Lydia to the wailing corpse as well. After this continued to go on for a while and he’d introduced her to several more ‘people’ he knew, she had to speak up.

“Beetlejuice, did you bring me here just to show all your friends that you could get a date?”

“What? _Me_?” he feigned innocence while he slung an arm over her shoulder.

She couldn’t deny that it felt nice, somehow, despite the chill emanating off of him, making her shiver each time he pulled her closer. At least she was getting used to his smell—or perhaps it was that the rest of the ‘town’ smelled so rotten that it was hard to distinguish him anymore.

“Alright, here we are, the Neitherworld’s main attraction! Besides me, of course.” Beetlejuice at last led her to an overgrown field. Damp fog settled heavily, growing thicker as they walked through the tall, yellow weeds. Between gnarled, leafless trees, a structure like the old bandstand in the park back home rose up into the night sky. As they neared it, a band of skeleton musicians knit together out of the fog, moving, crackling, plucking the ghastly instruments that formed in their hands.

“This is… nice.” Lydia insisted after she watched and listened in silence. Somehow the mist rising at her ankles was colder than Beetlejuice himself, so she leaned against him again, reveling feeling the hand that settled on her shoulder. “Did you arrange this?” she asked, moved by the timelessly romantic edge amidst the creepy setting.

“Nah, these guys are here every night...”

The band at last struck up a ‘tune,’ if it could be called that. Perhaps somewhere underneath the awful layers of half-broken, out-of-tune instruments, Lydia could sort of recognize a classic waltz.

“Well? Do you wanna or not?” Beetlejuice shouted over the ‘music,’ so sudden Lydia couldn’t help but flinch.

“Want to what?” she asked, although she already had some idea by the way he extended his hand.

“Now you’re gonna act all coy about it after you were begging me to do this last time…” he teased her even as she took his hand.

Lydia didn’t want to say anything too cruel about their first dance, but it was pretty obvious that neither of them knew what they were doing. Feeling she could trust him after they’d both tried some pathetic, mutual swaying, she tried to mention something.

“Maybe if they played a different song…”

“These guys are pretty bad, right?” Beetlejuice laughed.

“I’m glad you said it first…”

“Babes, they’re terrible! Why do you think they’re _here_ every night?” Then, he released her, stepped back, winked. “Screw these guys. Watch this!”

Filling the void that the band left, Beetlejuice proceeded to do several tricks for her, transforming first into a skeleton conductor for the crappy band. Then he moved on to become each one of the instruments, playing music on himself with his own severed hands.

“Sick!” Lydia cheered and clapped when he hit a high note and sprayed blood out of the end of his disembodied trumpet face.

“Thank you, thank you…” he bowed for her, returning to his more familiar form.

“Will you play at our wedding?” Lydia teased, making him scowl and promptly sprout fungus again. She laughed watching him tear it out by the handful. “That’s cute!”

“Yeah, you like that? Well guess what! I don’t even want to marry you anymore, you shitty little kid!” he snapped, irritated.

“That’s mean.” She scolded him, wondering exactly which part of what he’d said bothered her the most. “What made you change your mind?”

“You’re related to those weirdos in that ugly house up there, and I don’t want them for in-laws!” he shouted. Then, he paused to mutter, slightly softer, “Plus, I dunno, I wouldn’t be able to hang out with you anymore…” Then, he composed himself again to continue grumbling at her. “ _And_ you embarrassed me in front of all my friends today.”

“Wow…” Lydia didn’t know where to start, so she focused on the important part. “If we got married, we couldn’t see each other anymore? That’s terrible!”

He shook his head solemnly in agreement, clutching his chest.

“You mean, you _like_ hanging out with me? And to think, you used to be worried I was gonna try to dip my wick.”

“Gross!” boldly, she shoved him. Her hand passed through him, punching a hole in him like a piñata, a thousand insects proceeding to scamper out of the hole.

“Babes, what I’m trying to say is—,” he waited for her to finish writhing and flinging the bugs off of herself, “—being dead’s not so bad with you around. It’s not every day a guy gets a shrine built for him. All that stuff you’ve been givin’ me is really choice shit, too.”

“Do you mean that?” Lydia studied him, lost herself in his sincere yellow eyes, then offered him her hand. “That’s really sweet. Thank you.”

Then, she decided to go for it. She stood on her toes, pursed her lips, leaned toward him. She shivered to feel long, jagged nails drag along her throat.

“How are your feet?” he prompted suddenly, sharply.

“My—huh?” Lydia quickly looked down as soon as he’d said it. To her horror, the ground beneath her was empty—she had no feet. She couldn’t feel the ground where she would’ve been standing, and now she couldn’t move either.

“Aw, Babes! You forgot!” he chided her. “I told you not to forget you had feet! That was your only rule!”

“I don’t even remember what shoes I was wearing, just that they were cool…” Lydia instantly felt sick, dizzy from the sensation of falling that suddenly became overwhelming again like when she’d first arrived.

“Well, see ya on the other side, Babes.” Beetlejuice sighed as the feeling grew worse and worse. “Same time tomorrow?”

“What’s happening?” she pleaded, panicking, grasping for him.

“You’re alright, you just lost your spot here.” She heard his voice assuring her, but lost sight of him, disoriented.

A moment later, she gasped and tried to move, her neck and back so stiff she could hardly sit up.

She realized she was laying on the hardwood floor of her bedroom at home. Judging by the way she ached, she’d been there for some time. She struggled to get up, clutching her head. Sitting up she was nauseous; her head throbbed and her gut hurt like the worst cramps she’d ever had. Doubling over, she determinedly pulled herself to her feet, bracing herself on her bedframe and staggering for the door.

She found some comfort in the bathroom, splashing cold water on her face, trying to calm down and catch her breath. The pain and disorientation began to slowly subside. Passing through to the other side must’ve made her physical, living body react like this. She wondered if it was always this bad—then realized that she would endure it again if it meant she could be a more important part of Beetlejuice’s world.

As she came down, something beside the bathroom sink caught her eye. The razor blade! She picked it up, looked it over, then eagerly glanced to the mirror, hoping that Beetlejuice would be there. She tried to contain her disappointment at finding she was alone, sneaking back to her bedroom with the razor blade in her palm.

Once she’d hidden it away, she realized that she was quite exhausted. She took the time to at least refill the water glass on Beetlejuice’s shrine and put out the other lime she’d gotten from her parents.

She wondered if it was really appropriate to formally summon him now, so she spoke casually to the shrine instead of calling him.

“Thank you for tonight. I’m sorry I didn’t understand and it got cut short. Next time I’ll try to keep my head—or my feet, I guess—and we’ll hang out longer.”

“Lyds.” His voice whispered to her through her mirror. She glanced up; he stood behind her reflection, meeting her eyes. “Thank you for giving me a place up here.”

“That’s sweet. You’re welcome.” She sighed, grateful to see him one last time before turning in. she kissed the palm of her hand and blew it toward the reflection. He made a show of lunging to ‘catch’ it and then stuff it into his pocket, perhaps right next to the clump of hair.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ch 4 summary (contains spoilers):
> 
> Lydia is visited by Beetlejuice in her bathroom mirror. They talk about the notebook and the razor blade. Beetlejuice reveals that he took the razor blade back but he also asks her on a “date” and gets mushroom hanahaki. He takes her somewhere to ritually dig up his grave, then he pulls her into a coffin-gateway to the Neitherworld. He tasks her with one weird rule—she has to remember that she has feet. Worldbuilding; descriptive setting. Beetlejuice takes her around town and introduces her to a bunch of bums he knows, then he tries to take her dancing but they end up just messing around in a weird park. Then, Lydia forgets that she has feet and gets sent back to the real world.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> see end notes for detailed summary with spoilers

Lydia woke late to see mid-morning sun trickling through her window, illuminating the shrine on her dresser. She stood over it, grateful once more to find his glass empty and his fruit desiccated.

Thinking of him, she searched her wardrobe for something red, but alas it wasn’t a color she’d ever thought to wear until Beetlejuice had dressed her in it. Regardless, she picked out a favorite outfit, all black and layered and delightfully dark, sat on her bed to get changed, and gasped when she lifted her nightgown.

Long scratches ran down her thighs, red and swollen with the beginnings of infection, five each on both legs so that it was obvious they’d been done with fingernails.

Her mind ran through several scenarios, each of them making her angrier and more embarrassed. Not yet coming to a conclusion, but getting some idea, she stormed over to the dresser and pounded her fist on the shrine, calling him furiously,

“Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice!”

He didn’t appear right away, but she was sure she could smell him.

“Get out here and talk to me, right now!” she ordered.

“Now’s not a good time, Babes,” his low, hushed voice came through her mirror.

“Oh, isn’t it?” she spat. “What did you do to my legs?”

“Huh? Didn’t they come back once you got home?”

“You know what I’m talking about!” even as she spoke, she could feel the sting of the cuts under her tights. “You’d better come out here and talk to me or I’ll take your shrine away!”

At last he manifested visually, filling the mirror, sitting once more on the reflection of the dresser top. Unamused yellow eyes squinted at her.

“You wouldn’t.” he challenged, then sighed at her firmly crossed arms and scowl. “Babes, I can’t hang around right now. The Neitherworld had an escapee a couple of days ago and the goons are here looking for all of us _usual suspects_. I gotta stick around here for a little bit so they know it’s not me.”

“Well. I can’t imagine why _you’d_ be a suspect,” she grumbled at his sincerity, trying to stay reasonably mad. “Maybe because you like to cut girls’ legs up?”

“What are you goin’ on about now?” he seemed honestly stumped. “I thought the cutting thing was your gig. I gave you your blade back, isn’t that enough?”

“Are you saying you didn’t scratch my legs last night?”

He blinked at her.

“Your legs are scratched?” then, something beyond her perception caught his attention. “Shit! Babes, they’re coming, I gotta go for now, but I’ll be back, okay? We’ll get to the bottom of this today.”

Then, his hand extended from the mirror as if through the surface of water. He held it out to her, a gentle and sincere smile on his face. Sighing, forgetting her accusatory rage, Lydia took it for a moment, clasping his stained knuckles and long, yellowed nails that certainly looked like they could’ve done some scratching—and then, he was gone.

The bad news didn’t end when she made herself go downstairs for breakfast, either. Instead of a calm setting at the table, she found her parents, awake and active, turning over the house, frantically searching. In the middle of it stood the attic ghosts, helplessly watching.

“They’ve lost the notebook and we haven’t been able to talk to them for days,” Barbara Maitland explained over the ruckus of the Deetz’s searching.

“Oh, that’s strange,” Lydia lied, visualizing it in the bottom of her school bag. It seemed like a bit of a small thing for such a chaotic response. “Doesn’t it stay in a safe?”

“Oh, Lydia? Are the Maitlands here after all? We haven’t been able to find the notebook and we thought they were gone!” Delia said of her addressing the ‘empty’ room.

“Yeah, they’re here…” Lydia spoke begrudgingly of the ghosts.

“You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that notebook, would you?” Charles Deetz addressed her now, perhaps more in alignment with his daughter’s antics than anyone else.

“What would I know?” Lydia stammered, avoiding his gaze.

“I’d search her room,” Adam Maitland spoke plainly to his wife.

“Me too,” Barbara Maitland agreed.

Lydia ignored the ghosts, pretending to ‘help’ look for a few minutes, trying to act like she was only dodging one set of parents.

“She knows where it is,” Barbara Maitland assessed out loud after a while.

“I think so too.” Adam agreed. “Maybe we should check her room.”

“No!” Lydia jerked up to stop them from making their way up the stairs.

“Is everything okay?” Delia reacted to Lydia speaking to the room again.

Lydia was already halfway up the stairs, chasing the ghosts floating up to her room.

“I—forgot to change my underwear…” Lydia cringed at the weird excuse and just dashed the rest of the way up the stairs instead of hearing their response.

She found the ghosts already in her room, trying to peek around as well as they could. Lydia vowed to find a way to make things more unwelcoming for them in here. Maybe Beetlejuice could help her set things up to be unpleasant for ‘that’ type of ghost.

“Get out of here!” she hissed in the meantime, moving to stand in front of the shrine.

“You know, Lydia, if we were alive, we wouldn’t put up with you hurting yourself and sneaking around and taking things that don’t belong to you!” Barbara Maitland scolded.

“If you were alive, I wouldn’t have to live in this creepy old house full of ghosts that nag me more than my own parents!” Lydia replied. “The only reason I have to sneak around is because you guys never give me any privacy!”

“Where’s our notebook?” Adam Maitland pressed on, his rage making the room oddly warm where he stood.

“We only care about you!” Barbara Maitland added, pink ectoplasm beginning to bead on the floor at her feet.

“Ugh! Goodbye!” Lydia started to dismiss them in a way that she knew for a fact was a bit rude. “Hey, when that notebook turns up, maybe you can stop tattling on me all the time! Goodbye! _Goodbye_!”

When she’d at last dismissed the tedious ghosts, she stood, weary, looking at Beetlejuice’s shrine. Informally, she knelt in front of it and spoke to him.

“Hey. We need to talk. I have to get rid of this notebook.”

An icy hand swept up her neck, carding through her hair before disappearing again.

“I just gave that to you. It’s already too hot for you to handle, huh?” he whispered, his voice somewhere just behind her. “Well, too bad. Shoulda thought about that before you asked me to take it. I can’t take it back now. Anyway, you got bigger problems, Babes.”

“Oh, really?” she stammered, searching for him behind her, not finding him, but quite certain she could see a shadow in her peripheral, ducking just out of her sight as she moved. “Well hurry up and tell me so I can go bury this notebook in the yard or something.”

“Yeah, yeah. Look, this is important!” he spoke frantically, seriously. “You got company, Babes. But don’t worry, I can handle it.”

A shiver crept over her as soon as he said it. “Handle what?”

“Here’s the thing. I _knew_ it seemed like you lost your spot pretty quick the other night.” He explained. “You’re a strong kid, I didn’t think you woulda dipped out on me right away like that. Well, turns out that escapee from my side got out by stealing your spot.”

“That’s so convoluted. What does any of that even mean?” she tried to understand, although panic clouded her thoughts.

“Means you got someone from my side hangin’ around.” Beetlejuice said solemnly. Then, he cleared his throat and made a sheepish admission. “Being as it’s technically my fault since I’m the guy who brought you over, I gotta help you get rid of the little moocher.”

“There’s something here?” Lydia gulped, glancing around her room again, searching for something that could not be seen, hoping the shadow in her peripheral was Beetlejuice after all. “Is that what scratched my legs?”

“Lemme see.”

Lydia hesitated, obviously. As weird and intimate as things had already become, it was another thing entirely to knowingly undress for Beetlejuice to watch. But she knew she had to swallow her pride this time. She lifted her lacy hem.

“Well, that’s easy,” he commented, upsettingly quick. “ _You_ did it.”

“Me?”

“They match your hands. Look.” Icy, invisibly fingertips brushed her thigh swiftly enough to make her yelp and swat him away—once her hand was there she discovered that he was in fact correct. She laid her hands over the scratches and could see clearly now that it lined up perfectly with her own nails, raking toward her, not away.

“But, why? How?” she found that the clarity offered little comfort. “Am I possessed?”

“That’s probably how this creep got through.” He muttered, then paused. “Reckon I coulda been a little more careful bringing you over… But you gotta wise up about all this shit you’re doing, too. What were you thinking, fucking around with that creepy blood bullshit?”

With the last of her self-awareness, she defended.

“What did you intend by giving me a razor if you didn’t want my blood?”

“Well… I dunno.” He spoke almost sheepishly. “You have a hobby, and I think that’s kinda neat. Just wanted to help you do your thing. Sorry that I don’t give a shit about your fucking math grades or whatever the rest of the morons around here are into.” At last he punctuated the thought by disgustedly miming self-righteous jerking off.

“Those guys want to _raise_ me. You’re the only one who wants to _know_ me,” she told him after some thought.

“Whatever.” He didn’t acknowledge it, scoffing instead. “Anyway, I’m just glad you got rid of that fucked up Williams and Sonoma number.”

“Well, actually…” Lydia swallowed her words, thinking about the broken medallion in her school bag, sitting right next to the damned notebook.

He groaned, realizing her hesitation.

“Why would you keep that shit?”

“I don’t know!” she said back, equally loud. “Everything’s been moving really fast! I felt really weird that night and I just wanted to get it out of my sight. I suppose it’s the reason why I felt so weird in the first place.”

“Aw, Lyds. I guess we’ve both been pretty careless about all this. You’re lucky I’m experienced with this kinda thing.” He assured her. “Look, do me a favor and don’t go anywhere. I mean stay _right_ _here_. I gotta go get some shit together on my end, but I’ll be right back. Don’t leave.”

“I can’t leave my room?” she whined, suddenly feeling a little confined in the space for the first time.

“You can get me another glass of water, if you want. But don’t fuck it up. Get the water and come right back. Think you can handle it?” He sounded solemn, too much like a parent so that she ignored his dire tone as she stood and walked to her door. “Lyds!”

She paused, amazing by the power behind her name when he said it.

“What?” she stopped with her hand on the door.

“I know you don’t get how serious this is.” He said. “But you’re about to find out.”

“I understand.” She insisted. “I’ll be right back with your water.”

The moment she stepped over her threshold, she forgot the water to say the least. It didn’t stop her from making it all the way to the kitchen before she realized that she had no idea why she was there. Staggering her way through the house, she spotted her parents in the living room, long since having given up searching, although she found herself instantly paranoid. What if the attic ghosts had snuck into her room? What if her parents were gathering their thoughts before leading a raid on her stuff? Suddenly seized with unfounded anxiety, she dashed back up to her room, panicking.

She paced, her heart racing. She could barely think long enough to gather up all of her illicit items—the notebook, the broken medallion, the razor blade—and figure out some way to hide them on her person. She studied her figure in the mirror, trying to get it right. The medallion and blade were easy, but the notebook ruined everything! She felt especially stupid now, mentally berating herself for having wanted it in the first place.

Such foolishness was why some “escapee” from Beetlejuice’s world must’ve chosen her to possess. She thought this about herself and suddenly felt terrible in addition to uncomfortably anxious.

She at last managed to hide the notebook under an unseasonably warm coat. It would have to work. She headed downstairs and straight for the front door.

“Where are you going, dear?” Delia called out to her from the living room. Luckily her father must’ve run off to his study, but her stepmother was already on her. “That coat’s a bit heavy, isn’t it?”

“Why don’t you mind your own business, Delia?” Lydia heard her own voice say, although it seemed to come from some place more distant than her own throat.

“What?” Delia croaked. She stammered, her voice cracking. “Why, Lydia, I thought…”

“I’m going out. That’s all you need to know. Got a problem with that? Go make some _art_ about it.”

Lydia couldn’t even imagine talking to her stepmother in such a way, let alone accept that it was happening, but somehow she couldn’t stop herself. Then she turned and was out the door before she could hear Delia’s rebuttal. The door slammed shut behind her. Surprisingly, it did not open again, and her due scolding never came.

Lydia walked with purpose through the yard and away from the house, her heart still racing thinking about the notebook hidden under her clothing. Even though she knew she wasn’t being pursued, she started to run. Thinking about the things that were associated with the broken medallion drove her to keep going. Maybe if she could get far enough away from the house, _it_ could not find her.

It—she didn’t know what ‘it’ was—only that Beetlejuice seemed to know, which wasn’t much comfort. It was only then that she remembered his warning not to leave her room. Now her heart raced for an entirely different reason. She needed to dump the stuff and get back, fast!

She came to a spot in the overgrown unincorporated land behind the house. It reminded her of the place where she’d seen Beetlejuice’s headstone the night before. Maybe she’d been expecting to be somehow provided with a shovel again—now she stared at the damp ground and then her empty hands.

A desperation to be rid of the stuff seized her. Grumbling but obeying the instinct, she fell to her knees and drove her fingers into the hard, compacted earth.

Sandy grit made the soft flesh under her nails sting painfully, but somehow she kept digging. Mud got all over her clothes as she lifted her blouse to retrieve the illicit objects. She’d only managed to get six inches or so deep— it would have to work. She threw the medallion pieces in first with intention that she could not explain and then covered them with the notebook, smothering them. Then, she clutched the razor blade in her fingers and pressed a solemn kiss to it, laying it on top of the notebook and then pushing the dirt back over the hole.

She’d hoped that getting rid of the things would’ve made her feel better, but now she only felt worse. She stood and stared regretfully at the place where she’d buried the things. Then, in the distance, she heard a voice.

“ _Lydia_ …” somehow she couldn’t distinguish who it belonged to, but it came from the house. She turned and crept back out of the wooded area. Sunlight hit her and hurt her eyes. She staggered through the yard, shielding her face with her hand. She heard her name called again, compelling her to walk faster. Oddly, now it seemed to be coming from the place where she’d just been.

At least she was at her front door again. She grabbed the handle to open it, but it was locked. Her chest tightened. Her parents never locked it during the day. She rattled the handle, hoping it was just stuck. When it wouldn’t open, she panicked and started knocking.

“Delia! Dad! Why is the door locked? Let me in!” she called out to them knocking harder. She carried on for several minutes and still no one came. The car was in the driveway, so surely they had not gone out. She tried the door one last time to no avail and tears started to form. She gave in and threw herself against the door, sobbing hopelessly.

“You dummy.” _Finally_ a familiar voice huffed behind her. “I told you to stay in your room!”

“It’s you!” she wailed pathetically, choking out a sobbing breath.

“What are you doing out here?” Beetlejuice yelled at her.

“I can’t get in…” she sniffled at him, wishing she could see him, touch him.

“That’s because you left and you lost your spot again.” He heaved a sigh. “Thanks a lot. This was supposed to be easy. Now you got some creep in there pretending to be you.”

“Can you help me?” she whimpered, hugging her knees. “Is there really a ghost in my house pretending to be me?”

“I’m trying to help you,” he said tiredly. Then, softer, he added. “It’s not in your _house_.”

“Oh…”

“Listen, Babes. Trust me and do what I tell you. Shit’s about to get really weird. You’re about to feel kinda funny for a minute. Just do what I tell you and you’ll be fine. Hell, you’re a freak, you might even like it.” He spoke to her calmly, steadily. “Now, there’s just one thing I need you to do for me… will you?”

She nodded, moved to speak. Her voice was trapped halfway in her throat. She gagged on the words.

“C’mon, Babes. This is the easy part. You got this, _Lydia_.”

Hearing him say her name broke her forcible silence. She sucked in a shaky breath and then called him,

“Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice!”

Icy wind swept over her, making her lurch to huddle against the door, but to her surprise it was already open. She stumbled over the threshold expecting it to break her fall. When she pulled herself to her feet, she glanced around—she was not in the entryway to the house, but instead in the dust- and cobweb-covered copy of her bedroom from Beetlejuice’s vision the night before.

“This isn’t right…” she whispered, searching for him,

“I know. We’re getting there.” He spoke grimly. “You’re seeing what _it_ sees. The only way you can move around in your real house now is if you close your eyes.”

“This is too confusing.” Lydia fought against the tears resurfacing in her eyes. Somehow amidst all of this, the scratches on her legs and the recent fresh cuts she’d given herself had started to sting distractingly as well.

“Stop freaking out! Just listen to me!” he shouted at her, doing the opposite of calming her down. “Now close your eyes already.”

She finally obliged. She felt a little lightheaded again when she did it.

“Now what?” she clutched her head and tried to stop from swaying.

“Now you follow me.” His voice was no longer beside her but somewhere far away in the house. “And keep quiet!”

“I don’t even know where you are!”

“Listen, then!” he walked around her—she could hear intentional, slow footsteps in front of her. She stepped toward him, hesitantly trying to pinpoint the way he was going. He continued to move just slightly ahead of here, heavy feet scraping along hardwood floors. She could hear the creak of the bottom step leading upstairs.

“Are we in the living room right now?” Lydia heard her voice chattering beyond her control. “Are my parents here?”

All she could hear in response was the shifting of weight on that bottom step.

“Beetlejuice? Are you there?” she called from where she stood. “Where are you?”

She jumped to feel the icy fingertips brush against her hand. Then he went back to creaking on that step. She took a shaky breath and tried to follow him, blindly feeling ahead of her for the railing.

Eyes closed, ears open, she followed him up the stairs. She reached the stop and let go of the railing.

“Shit!” she heard him say somewhere ahead of her.

“What?”

“Uh, little challenge ahead of ya, Babes. No big deal.” He spoke carefully, choosing his words with intention.

“Now what?”

“Just come over here. You’ll see.” He said. “Go on. Walk in a straight line toward me.”

“Okay…?” she walked toward where she heard his voice, her hands instinctively in front of her.

Then she felt it. Something dense like a piece of furniture, but solid, and warm. A preternatural presence that was not cold like Beetlejuice, and she’d touched it. It didn’t moved or react, but stood like a stone monolith, directly in her way.

She gasped, pulling her hands away.

“What is that?”

“Shh!” he cut her off. “You got this. Just keep going in a straight line.”

“But…” he shushed her again and she swallowed her fear, moving forward with her hands ahead of her again. She made contact with it—shivering to feel its horrible, silent mass in the hallway.

She tried to move around it carefully, making sure she was still going in the right direction while moving around the extremely alarming thing in the hallway.

“Almost there, sweetie,” Beetlejuice urged when she finally got past it. “You’re almost okay to open your eyes.”

Too eager, she preemptively opened them. She was exactly where he said she was, in the hallway just outside her bedroom door. A tall, _tall_ , elongated shadow was cast behind her, over her. Impulsively, her head turned to look behind her.

“ _Close your eyes_!” Beetlejuice shouted at her. She snapped them shut and ran for the door, racing for his voice. She heard the door slam shut behind her and she opened her eyes again.

Unexpectedly, Beetlejuice was suddenly quite visible, fully manifested right in front of her. She gasped, shocked to suddenly see him.

“You never listen!” he whined, assertively meeting her eyes. Once he did, his face turned disturbing and sinister. “Damn, Lyds… I knew that wasn’t you under those blankets the other night.”

“What are you talking about?” she managed to ask.

He pointed to her dresser mirror. “See for yourself.”

She stepped closer and dared to look.

The eyes that met hers were not her own. She couldn’t explain it, but the reflection that looked back at her was not her, but something _mean_ , something sour. She shivered, suddenly upset, and turned away.

Tears poured out of her eyes. Her own voice was shrill in her ears.

“It’s _not_ in my house...” Suddenly, the scratches on her thighs started to burn painfully, far overshadowing the discomfort of her cuts. She couldn’t help but cry harder.

“Just calm down.” He grumbled.

“How can I?” she wailed. “I’m possessed!”

“Yeah, yeah, been there… Starts gettin’ kinda _fun_ after the fifth or sixth time.” He spoke so casually about something that felt so awful. This whole time her heart had not slowed, her body hadn’t stopped shaking. He watched her hold herself and shiver almost boredly. Then, he gestured to her bed. “Listen, I kinda want to sit down.”

“So, sit.” She shrugged.

“You have to sit down first.”

She had to think about it for a minute before she could move, but she finally forced herself to oblige him. She slowly sat, just at the edge, her back rigid, knees straight, eyes forward.

“Good…” he sighed and heaved himself onto the bed beside her. A cold, heavy arm wrapped around her shoulders. “Alright, _Lydia_ ,” he spoke her name slowly, intentionally. As soon as he’d said it, her ears began to ring terribly loud. “You should think about what we’re going to do once this is over, because it’s going to be over real soon.”

She focused on the sound of his voice and the feeling of his arm around her. The ringing grew louder and louder by the second. She knew it was in her best interest to try to listen to him regardless.

“You know something I like about you, _Lydia_? You’re a really strong chick. I mean, you really know who you are and what you want.” He continued to speak to her. Her body trembled to hear her name a second time. She fought against rising to her feet, fought to just be calm and listen. She wondered again if hearing his name inspired the same feeling in him and promised herself that she would never take it for granted again.

Perhaps bracing her further, he shifted, catching her hand, knitting her fingers in his. He held onto her, then spoke her name again, calling her,

“I like you so much, you make me grow mushrooms like I’m a fresh grave all over again. Hell, I think I might even love ya, _Lydia_ …”

Being called three times while in such a state was like being ripped apart, beginning with a big hole in her chest. She could feel Beetlejuice’s dense, heavy hands holding her down, pinning her to her bed. She could hear a scream unlike anything she'd ever known to come from her own mouth, feel it shredding its way out through her throat like tissue paper. She thrashed against him with unnatural strength, nearly throwing him right off of the bed. At some point she could feel him pressed tightly against her, his face an inch away from her ear, speaking directly to something that definitely wasn’t her.

“Get outta here, creep! Don’t ever fuck with my girl ever again! Have fun in the Lost Souls’ Room, twat!”

At once it was over.

Lydia’s chest strained to catch her breath. She sprawled, exhausted where she laid on her bed. She could clearly feel a certain hollowness in her heart where it had once been within her, and the ringing in her ears was gone too. Now she could only feel her slowing pulse. Her heart hurt trying to compensate. Now when she cried it was a reaction to the relief and shock of it being over.

“Good girl…” his voice muttered somewhere within the room. “I knew that was gonna be a quick one.”

“Where are you?” she croaked, her throat ragged from the hideous scream that had come out of her.

“I’m just over here,” he said plainly. “Thought you might want a little space…”

“Thanks.” She tried to slow her breath, appreciative of his consideration. She cried a little longer, then decided that she was feeling a lot better now that ‘it’ was suddenly gone. “I think I’ve had enough space…”

He silently obliged her, crossing the room to sit at her side on her bed. She rolled over to curl around him, finding the comfort in the icy figure now that she just wanted to cool off.

“My teeth hurt…” she grimaced, assessing her physical condition now that she was aware of it again.

“Yeah, you were clenching your jaw pretty hard.” Suddenly he burst into laughter. “Sorry, just made me think of this one scene in _The Exorcist_.”

He continued to laugh to himself. She was grateful that it was all so funny to him. She herself was feeling a little too strange and unusual for one day.

“Am I going to feel like this forever?” she whined at him.

“No, but you’ll never be exactly the same as you used to be.” He spoke casually enough that she couldn’t help but sob once more. “Sorry. I keep forgetting it’s your first time.” He at last acknowledged her sadness.

“What do you mean, first time?” she repeated pitifully. “I never want to feel like this again!”

A chilly hand found its way to the center of her back and traced slow circles, giving her something else to think about.

“You’re a nice chick who can talk to dead people. With or without me, it’s not gonna be the last time some jerk just thinks he can stick around.” After a moment’s thought, he added, “You shoulda figured that out when you met me.”

“You’re different.” She insisted. When he scoffed, she added, “I want you around.”

“You’re more likely to attract that type of deadbeat if you hang out with me,” he added. “I’m kinda known for causing that sort of thing.”

“Then you’ll just have to help me when it happens again.” She rolled back over to look at him, smile back at him. Her mind returned to the inevitable. “Did my parents hear any of that?”

“Not this time… They weren’t around.” He seemed like he didn’t want to explain. “But they might’ve seen you acting weird before I got here today. Can’t help you with that.”

“I suppose there are just some problems I have to face on my own…” she said, thinking of all the things that had happened that day, wondering how she’d ever account for all of them.

“Babes… I gotta take off pretty soon,” he said, apologetically. “But I’ll be back tonight if you wanna give me some more of that good shit. But for now, I gotta tie up some lose ends on my side.”

“Paperwork?” she teased.

“Something like that.”

She glanced to his shrine, wondering what she wanted to do for him next.

“Will you stay and let me get you that water after all?” she tried to get him to stay just a little longer.

“You drink it, if you wanna get it so bad, Screamer…” he teased. “Maybe tomorrow you can give me a big fat orange or something. Or a cigarette. Aw, yeah, Babes, can you get me a cigarette? How about a little booze out of Daddy Deetz’s cabinet?”

Indeed, she could already imagine herself doing just that, breaking into her parents’ liquor just to steal a drink for her dirty ghost friend. Now that she’d dumped her razor for good, she’d have to find a new ridiculous hobby that would concern her parents.

Just before Beetlejuice moved to leave, she shot up in the bed, scrambling to press a kiss on his chilly, stiff cheek. At least he’d figured out what it took to make him flinch—he glanced back at her dramatically as he crossed the room, tossing aside a handful of the sprouting mushrooms he’d already ripped off is his neck.

“…creepy kid…” she heard him mutter as he crawled back into her mirror.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ch 5 summary (contains spoilers):
> 
> Lydia wakes to find troubling marks on her body. Beetlejuice knows nothing of it but warns her that something has escaped the Neitherworld. Lydia finds her parents and the ghosts looking for the stolen notebook. She gets caught talking to the ghosts and gets interrogated by them in her room. Beetlejuice informs her that she is host to the escaped soul and that he’s responsible for helping her dismiss it. Berates her for doing blood offerings again and tasks her with staying confined to her room. She promptly leaves and gets super disoriented and extremely paranoid. She takes everything suspicious out of her room and leaves to hide it, interacting bizarrely with Delia on the way out. She creepily hand-digs a hole and ritually buries everything, hearing her voice called in the distance. She returns to find that she is locked out of her house. Beetlejuice confirms that she is now quite possessed. They work together to navigate through it. Lydia touches a malicious spirit that isn’t Beetlejuice. He exorcises her and talks her through it afterward... happy ending?


End file.
